BLOOD AND THUNDER

VICTORY AT SEA

We never actually MADE a system.....we discussed how the system would play like, what the world would be like and how to adjust other systems to play it.

That said, I've always wanted a Neolithic RP system. Shall we construct this now, /tg/?

1. The majority of dangers are completely natural things, like wild animals, diseases, inclement weather, etc.
2. This is followed by dangers from other people.
3. The least common sort of danger is from magic.

I also think it would be cool if we held over some parts of the world to still have ice age conditions (yeah, it's neolithic, but it's FANTASY neolithic). If we decide to have more than one race, it'll be homo sapiens and our more primitive relatives (cro-magnon man, neanderthals, etc.)

Magic is highly spiritual.

Anyone else feel like contributing?

could have it where the Dwarves, or dwarven equivelent, are Neanderthals (Short, awesome upper body strength brutal facial features and epic beard/body hair) and they are the people who can make this magical substance. they call it 'tin' and 'copper' and 'Bronze', things not seen in nature. They dwell far to the north in short stone towers called Broch Towers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broch

A sword is a wooden club with sharped flint or obsidian (or sharks teeth depending on area) along the business edge.

There are things in the world like the Knife-tooth Cat, the Giant Bear and most feared of all the Once-men. the feral cannibals that dwell in the darkness and the forests.

The newest thing to happen is the discovery of Arable farming, before this had been herders, hunters and scavengers. This has led to strife between the traditionalist tribes of herders and the modernist freaks who want to grow stuff and not have herds of aurochs (a type pre-historic cow the size of a rhino and nearly as bad tempered) trampling the fields.

bump with neanderthal picture

There is no magic.

There is shit people call magic. People who can brew strange things in their leather cauldrons that can undo the cures of a snake bite, stop a deep cut from going manky and green and resulting in death.

It is said that they can make things in those cauldrons that can kill a strong man with a single drop.

They are considered fearsome opponents. those flint knives they carry could be drenched in something unholy that can make you heart stop if it so much as touches you.

I'd consider running a game like this. Can anyone think of any decent stories/ scenarios to run?

>>14229429
There is a trade convoy coming back from the Far North. A herd of auroch were herded up there to the Northeners/Neanderthals in exchange for a sled full of the immensely awesome 'Bronze' axe-heads.

Your mission, as dictated to you by the tribe elder, is make sure it gets home without the Once-men getting hold of it.

they are dangerous enough as they are. give them 'Bronze' and they will be unstoppable.

I must voice my approval of giving much deserved attention to the idea of a neolithic setting.

Also, anyone care to link me to the previous thread?

>>14228987
Races:
Homo Sapiens
Neanderthals
Homo Florensis (mini-humans)
Others?

This is the princess you must escort safely to a tribe on the other side of the island.

There are Giant Bears and Knife-toothed Cats between here and there. Some of the hunters have also claimed to have spotted Feral Cannibals in the area.

Reports on that last one are unconfirmed.

I don't know about the thread last night, but Totem is pretty related:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4927121/totem-rpg

>>14229899
Now consider that your entire tribe is too poor to afford any metal.

You have a stick with a sharp flint on the end held on with some sinew you saved from a previous meal.

Your food consists of smoked meat/fish and a few small and extremely acidic apples you found + anything you manage to kill/find along the way.

The boats are made of leather sheets stitched together over wooden ribs.

One stormy and ill-fated fishing expedition the leather tears. You are stranded many miles from home. This is in the days before maps.

>>14229899

Or you were trying to get the princess to the other side of the Island by sailing.

Point is you are a long way from home, it's getting dark and you have just seen a Giant Bear footprint in the beach sand.

You quickly grab some fallen branches and start trying to get a fire going because you currently have 4 flint knives between 5 of you and holy shit you don't want to be out in the dark with those odds.

>>14229924
Interesting, but not BRUTAL enough. It should be important to keep a fire going, combat should be dangerous, and wounds should be likely to kill unless the Shaman looks after you. (Therefore, character creation should be quick, becuse of the mortality rate. Ideally with random tables for appropriate names and tribe customs/attributes, for speed.) I like the idea of classes though - Strong Arm, Quick Hand, Clever Head, Worthy Leader, Shaman's Apprentice.

Or am I getting a bit Palaeolithic here?

Character creation

-choose race-
-home sapien
-neanderthal
-Florensis
- etc...

-choose class-
-hunter/quickhand(starts with spear,knife)
-gatherer/clever head(knowledge of plants,making fire)
-chieftain/goodleader(knowledge of navigating/enemies)
-warrior/strongarm(starts with leather armor, sword/axe/club)

-choose tribe-(all players should probably be from same tribe)
-Cromagnon(most intellegent,best technology)
-Mammoth hunters(strongest, best knowledge of hunting)
-others?

>>14230429
think Bunnies and Barrows - http://www.thehiddenburrow.com/mediums/bnb.htm "it also focused heavily on problem solving and trickery instead of direct combat. Being at the bottom of the food chain, everything from cats to hawks can potentially kill you"

the only reason in this case that you are not at the bottom of the food chain is because you have brain power and tools, but B&B does have a lot of focuss on social and avoidance skills

the ability to speak to 'related' species is an interesting on as well, you can understand and communicate basic concepts to a Homo-non-Sapien, but that's about it and the less close you are to them the harder it is to communicate at all

also, the further you get from your home lands, the more scared you are, you have never been this far, you don't know anyone who has, if you die out here you might never get to the after life , what if others have died out here and are wandering ghosts

oh shit, what was that i heard in the woods, what on the long list of things that might want to kill me is it? why did i leave my village anyway, who's idea was this, i knew I should have re-knapped my flint knie this morning, should i wake the others or just run...

Might I suggest some sort of sanity stat? Similar to CotC or even Insanity points ala WFRP?

>>14229303
Neanderthals were too stupid to figure out projectiles, making them a "crafty" race is dumb.

Bronze is too high tech for the time period, elemental copper and gold should be the only two metals available.

Brochs are iron age structures.

>>14230832
Sanity that can be 'cured' a little, you find a village with familar houses after weeks of dense forest and you feel a little more at home back in civilization again, the people even seem firendly, happy to see you...

you are invited as guests of honor to the spring festical because you managed to survive the winter in the farwoods, tell us your stories oh fartraveller, partake of our wine, you should all take one of our maidens, the young ones with flowers in their hair... drink some more, no, this drink, especially prepaired for you, we knew you would be coming, they always do at this time of the year...

SUDDENLY: A FUCKING WICKERMAN OUT OF NOWHERE

TRY AND SORT THAT SHIT OUT

>>14229174
how about making it a supplement for Mouseguard? That has rules for seasons and weather and stuff, yes? Weasels can be replaced with neanderthals if player characters are cro-magnon instead of mice. Other animals in Mouse Guard can be replaced with megafauna and sabertoothed cats etc accordingly.

MG also has the resources rules for crafting stuff, relationships with other members of the tribe etc.

>>14230874

When your muscles are powerful enough to bend your own bones over your lifetime, I don't think you need more projectiles than spears.

Also, the neanderthal genome project has shown that they didn't get Down's syndrome, schizophrenia, or autism. So they're arguably mentally stronger than homo sapiens.

>>14230932
They never even figured out that they could throw their spears. They just ran right up to a aurochs or mammoth and stuck them with a pointy stick that was generally less than 8 foot long.

And they got the shit kicked out of them for it.

Almost all their skeletons are full of healed breaks and deformities resulting from other kinds of bone damage.

Further, Downs is not a genetic malfunction, but rather a chromosomal one, and it primarily occurs when the mother is at the end of her fertile period, not a concern for a neolithic culture because of their short life expectancies.

Also we've not found an "autism gene" so how could we test dead Neanderthals for it? An autism gene test would be the Holy Grail of pediatrics right now.

I don't know enough about schitzoids to comment on it.

>>14230932
mental stability and intelligence aren't really the same thing though? For instance can't people be very clever and neurotic and the same time?

>>14230874

The ages did cross over, we established that on the last thread, you coulld know about Bronze ans a concept just like a street child in South Africa knows about jet liners, they'll never be within a hundred metres of one, let a lone own one, but they know (sort of) what they are and what they do

Iron Age men traded with Stone and Bronze age peoples, and traders took goods over vast distances and their value and rarity grew, a hunter gatherer with a bronze spear head would be the big pimping king of the woods even if it did cost most of his family's stores for the season, eually 'advanced' humans still kept and used stone and bone tools because they were cheap and easy to produce, even if Bronze/Iron was all the rage... metal was for best, stone was for eveyday use, the guy in the village can knock you up a new stone blade, but that bronze dagger cost a fortune, no way you're using that to core an apple with, are you serious?

>>14231004

Neanderthols are bese left as NPCs, backwards, short and strong, Dwarves without the modern skills, they do know their war around butchering and tool making, an art less common with settled peoples, but ask them for something new and they just won't understand what you are talking about, why? everythign they need they can make, there is nothing else that is needed

play Ne-Ans as slightly retarded specialists, they get uncomfortable with new ideas and are very happy juist doing the same things over and over becasue they work like they always have, a few odd taboos here and unfathomable way there nd they're good 2 dimentional traders/help/agressors

why did they attack us? they're just Ne-Ans, who knows what they're thinking? want a knew blade, that Ne-An tribe passing through this time of year make good ones, a bit out of fashion, but it you walk up to them backwards cooing like a dove and hand them 5 sea shells without looking anyone in the eye they'll hand one over without so much as a word... Can they speak? I've never heard one, odd bunch that lot...

>>14230787
Are you trying to make me do this? The emphasis on problem solving or avoidance is good.

>>14230832
Yeah, that sounds good.

>>14231051
But what era do you want?

The Neolithic extended from prior to the founding of the first real cites until well after the founding of Catal Huyuk.

If the planet's most advanced culture is still in the copper age, you can still have "metropolises" of more than 50k people.

But once the Bronze Age starts, you'll get empires and nations forming that can roll over neolithic cultures at will, and trade actually declines.

remember, this is NEOlithink, the ogabooga me hit with rock guys are outmoded, they still exist, just, but are the orcs/ogres in the game, less than human mentally, physically stronger and culturally weird, you take pride in being everything that they are not, you can use them, but at your own risk, you scare children with threats of feeding them to the Ne-Ans, dont' play too far from came becaue they might eat you, they steal children you know, keep an eye out and watch for that mell, the smell of animal fat, blood and the clothes they ware made out of CHILDRENS SKIN

even as an adult who tells the same tall tales to your kids you still don't trust the Ne-Ans, they do respect metal though, always make sure that you take every metal blade you have if you are expecting to meat them, make sure it's shined up and they can see it, it spooks them for some reason, just make sure they dont' get too spooked because they could do anything...

>>14231148
Neanderthals were complete extinct for thousands of years before the earliest known elemental copper tools.

>>14231147

I'd say the start of the Bronze Age, but northern/western Europe (so we can be white) but on the fringe of things, you head north and it gets cold and wild, some scattered enclaves of wandering Ne-Ans (I like that term) and big beasts, you head towards the Med and you start finding advanced towns, even pocket empires

how do you want to go, all rugged and mamoth fighting? travel north for some BLOOD AND THUNDER with the proto Norsemen, want to go all priest-king powerpolitics? head south and catch a ride to the Middle East, they have the circle things that... do things there... oh, and animals that you sit on and ride - seriously

have all cultures overlap and a few anachronisms (Ne-Ans, the odd dinosaur or sea monster etc) but then anythign outside of your experiance is freaky and open to wild interpretation

You see a PriestKing on a chariot with a polished bronze shield? HE WAS FLYING AND HELD THE SUN IN HIS HAND

see a elephant? FUKKING MONSTER RUNNN

etc etc, also remember to make it even more crazy when you tell someone about it later

>>14231227
>(so we can be white)

Please don't shit this interesting thread up.

>>14231187
next you'll be saying that we can't have dinosaurs either?

having near-humans is fun and can lead to some intersting plot hooks, juts becasue it's official that the copper age didnt' start until the best part of 20k years after Ne-Ans died out doesnt' mean you can't have a few survivers making it out of th Ice Age and about to die out

Tolkein Elves but short retards, they seem to know their time is up but keep sticking around anyway, less and less every generation, they just can't adapt like modern humans can, and those fukking dinosaurs dont' get any easier to kill, it's not like we're going to get sharper lightter weapons is it? sheesh, and you humans breed like rabbits and keep burning the forests down and trapping the animals...

remember to make app PCs young, teenagers or early 20s if you want some older members, they might have had children and be on a middle age wanderlust kick, prehaps the tribe/village has it's next generation of uppity teens taking over and you've been banished or you're just sick of the kids telling you what to do, you knew the new cheif's dad and that kid will never be as good as him if he lives to be 30!

You're leading a party away from the village with promises of metal and exotic jewelry, but it's all just a front, you want to see new things and find out if all of those stories about demons and ghosts were really true or were they just beer-talk of the old men who you knew never left walked more than 2 days from where they grew up... you aim to go as far as you can, see the other side of the mountain, hunt in other landsand life just for yourself

but you know you will die alone and afraid in a land your fathers fathers never even knew, but at least you will live every day free until you do

don't look back lads, onwards to the old stories, you don't believe the stories? you dhould do, your'e in one now...

pic related, fukkin spoilt kids get all the best weapons handed down to them, I've got to make do with what i can make out of stone and bone...

We aren't looking for historical simulation, so it wouldn't be terribad to amalgate cultures from different periods in a 50k year range. Everything from the last dying tribes of neandertals and homo erectus (The former being big game hunters dangerous in a fight, not capable of speaking, and driven into primordial valleys that are predominately cold forests, occasionally raiding more "civilized" areas when population pressures or encroachment force them to act desperately, the latter being quiet, smaller, more timid ape men who skulk around the periphery of more open areas like deserts and swamps, slipping quietly into walled settlements at night to brain their victims, when they come into conflict with Sapiens. Both would have cults of live sacrifice, and participate in sacred canabalism of their sacrifices, be it an honored member of their own clan or a child captive).

Dogs are the primary defense/early warning against either.

A few cultures have learned how to find elemental copper, and how to make knifes that never chip, only bend, and one culture has even discovered the tin/lead ore that turns copper into early bronze, but bronze tools can be found occasionally throughout due to trade and dispersion.

>>14231291

5:45 - clever boy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wStxdoJippc&feature=related

(early, not late Stone, but hey, lets have some crossover fun)

>>14231449
suddenly it becomes a fap thread...

you could also drop a little bit of Ancient Astronaut shit in their if you want, don't go too far tho, you'll end up in an Indiana Jones remake...

or you could play it us to look like that's going to happen but it's just a priest-king making shit up about coming from another world to sound cool and you expose him

queue some benny hill music and a chase sequence with chariots and temple vergins etc

>>14231488
Stone axes with green stick handles, paired with wicker shields, Blades larger than an arrow head and slimmer than an axe head are basically disposable in a fight, so spears only have flint tips if you are rich as fuck, or going after dangerous shit.

You will butcher the corpses of your slain enemies to recover your arrow points, as each represents as many as 20 hours of labor, more, actually, than the bow itself. If your tribe was blessed, location wise, you might have a lump of ferrite to use with a flint scrap to strike sparks, instead of having to use a firebow, making a fire so much faster to light (create tinder with your scraper, strike sparks, instead of create tinder, create bow, create fire board, create drill stick, rub like a motherfucker).

Boats are dugout level or bundle boat level (traditional canoe shape made by tying together bundles of reeds or wooden rods, longest bundles to the outside, force bundles to meet in the middle). Simple, buoyant (no need to worry about leaks, you've got a lighter than water boat), durable, slow. And if your cords rot, then you're fucked.

People made the voyage from Scotland to the Orkneys IRL in these things, with dogs and sheep and ponies along for the ride, so they are very able to survive treacherous seas on trade missions, but there are serpents in the water, so spirits save whoever gets knocked overboard in a storm.

There's a French RPG somewhere around called Wurm that's based in the Ice Age.

Could never find much good information about it in English, but here's a blog belonging to the artist that's full of great pictures:
http://roudier-neandertal.blogspot.com/

someone archive/blogthis, I'm off to bed.

reading After The Ice at the moment, very related to this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Ice-Global-Human-History/dp/0753813920

Here is your equipment list.

(Actually, I have feeling this might be the actual equipment page art from Wurm, but whatever)

Oolva looks like a massive slut to me, frankly.

Who needs fantasy monsters when you've got bears that look like that. Holy shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbmywzGAVs
Neaderthals were apex predators in Ice Age europe and hunted megafauna . They almost wiped us out when they migrated south in a 50 thousand year race war.

idea:
set it in the fantasy equivalent of late ice-age mesopotamia. That way you have the Neanderthals living in the northern mountains and ice sheets, homo erectus living to the east and south, and ethnically distinct groups of sapiens from africa, arabia and europe inter-mixing.

>>14231148
The idea that neanderthals were all stupid and incapable of forming a complex society is ridiculous. They likely possessed the same level of intelligence as modern humans, its possible they weren't able to communicate verbally, but that doesn't mean they were violent or stupid. In fact, if the setting is anything close to accurate neanderthals and humans would likely live in close proximity, with occasional conflict, but mostly peaceful cooperation.

>>14232065
the thing is to give your PCs a racist outlook on the world, Ne-Ans are supposed to be stupid and weird because you are clever and modern, aren't you?

either play this out to keep conflict, or go all huggy and let everyone find common ground and get on peacefully after they find out, hey, we're all in it togther

blood and thunder is more likely, we're humans after all

>>14230721
add a shaman class. They would get a lot of benefits to interactions since they would be able to enter trances to commune with the spirits. Depending on how much magic we want in the setting this is either real travel to other worlds, or dropping hallucinogenic mushrooms and putting on a good show. Shamans should also have advanced knowledge of healing plants and procedures, as well as a highly developed set of magic rituals meant to fight disease.

>>14232097
i think it would be much more interesting to keep the inter-species interaction to something like the traditional dwarves vs elves dynamic. Mistrust, dislike, and occasional conflict, but interaction and cooperation is still the norm rather than the exception.

>>14232065

Modern Research suggest that most western Europeans have a significant percentage of Neanderthal DNA, that is lacking particularly in baseline African samples. Put simply many if not most of us are descended from Homo Sapien and Neanderthal pairings.

Whatever they may have been, they were clearly mutually attractive and compatible enough to mate and raise children with.

We have no way to know whether they were capable of advanced 'human' speech. They had all the right equipment biologically speaking although their voices would have been in the feminine register. Even the men.

Maybe that's why we fucked them out of existence.

You know the jokes about H:FY and humans sleeping with everything. Neanderthals are likely a race we genocided with good old fashion intercourse.

If you're going to do any kind of neolithic setting its very important to make some distinctions between groups of people based on livelihood.

Hunter-Gatherers:
They have a culture centered around the hunt, although the majority of their food is still plant material gathered by women. There are clearly defined gender roles, but neither gender is socially dominant. Social status is based on an individual's abilities, not who his parents were and the chief is likely a consensus leader. The chief has no means of forcing anyone to do anything, but if people are upset about something he can force them to leave the tribe. If someone has done something really awful then he will likely be killed unceremoniously by the hunters. Religion is dominated by the shaman, a specialist in contacting the spirits that animate the world, he also acts as healer. Warfare is non-existent and inter-group conflict is usually small and rarely lethal.

Pastoralists:
People who make a living by raising sheep, horses, cattle etc. Highly mobile society, with clearly delineated roles based on age and gender. Women are generally considered property owned by men, and are sold by their parents for livestock when they come of age. Men spend the time they come of age to middle age as warriors, participating in small-scale raids on other tribes to gain access to their livestock. Once a man retires from being a warrior he can begin to accumulate livestock and wives. The leader of the group is usually the one with the most cattle.

I think for purposes of variety, having the setting range from the Paleolithic to the early Bronze age would be most interesting, so that you can have Homo Erectus and Neanderthals, Cave Bears and Sabre-tooth tigers coexisting with 'magical' metal weapons and early cities.

Not strictly historically correct, but more fun, I think.

Also if homo floresiensis is appearing then there's no way gigantopithecus is being left out.

So after reading both threads...

we are basically making a very "early" Conan game.

>>14232321
continued

horticulturalists:
People who make a living by cultivating small gardens to supplement hunting and gathering. This is the first truly sedentary lifestyle where stay in the same place year-round forming the first villages and towns. Gender relations depend on what kind of crops are grown, but tend to be relatively balanced. Usually men function as hunters and warriors while women tend to the farming and gathering aspects that make up the bulk of the food supply. Politics is usually clan-based with the clan headed by either a patriarch or matriarch. Each village is usually a multi-clan entity ruled over by a chieftain chosen through general consensus, there is usually a war chief and a peace chief. Warfare tends to be small-scale and ended through peaceable solutions (usually mutual gift exchange). Redistributive feasting becomes the central aspect of community life (meaning that people are obliged to give away their accumulated surplus in lavish feasts). Religion is still run through a shaman, but the first really cohesive mythologies start to develop.

>Tame a boar.
>Ride the boar.
>Be a wise king.

>>14232520

agriculturalists:
In the neolithic the first agricultural societies emerged. People learned how to grow plants on a much larger scale than they had previously been able to. They likely farm grains like corn, wheat, barley, or rice as opposed to the vegetables and roots farmed by horticulturalists. If women are the principal farmers (as is the case in some kinds of wet rice farming) then they become the dominant members of society, with the opposite being true if men are the principal farmers (as is the case in the cultivation of wheat and corn). These people live in villages, towns and the first true cities. They possess a hereditary nobility and leadership structure that is usually linked to divine power and control over the distribution of the harvest. Neolithic agriculturalists could live in anything from a developed chiefdom ruling a town of a thousand or so, to a massive city state ruling over thousands or even a million. Religion is closely tied to state structure and likely focused on the harvest cycle.

I hope people found that helpful

>>14232328
that picture looks like the start of a hilarious romantic comedy

>>14232527
Depending on how fantasy you want to go, I'd want to ride a bronze-armoured woolly rhino.

Shit would be so cash.

If you want monstrous unnatural creatures but don't want magic you could thrown in aliens. Take a few pages from the crazy book and have ancient aliens piping in every once and a while to do some shit. These "sky gods" would be strange entities with mysterious motives. One might burn a tribe to ash or turn another to stone in a miraculous flash of light while another might bring strange gifts.

They would be incredibly rare and powerful and would be nothing more than myths to the average player. They would be things the elders talked about but could never prove. There might be a class (if we choose to go with classes) associated with them, a Sky Priest or something. The Sky Priest would be some one who was contacted by dreams or in person by one of the sky gods. They would wield fantastic technology and would know things that humans at that time period aren't ready to know. They would start out with something gifted to them by he sky gods, like a tool made of "magic" materials or some special knowledge. They would also start with less sanity than the average person or already a few ticks down the crazy scale.

The rest of the classes would have no skills related to the sky gods at all. They would be beings of immense power and mystery that could kill or drive insane with a whim. Sky priests would have some sort of immunity to this but their interactions with the sky gods would be impossible for the others to comprehend, maybe causing some sort of drive check for them not to turn on their former companion.

There could also be a race that would be humans tainted by the blood of the sky gods. This could also be a starting trait if some sort of perk/feat system is used. Or this could just be something for sky priests to use in backstory.

>>14232180
This is old research that has been discredited.

The idea that modern Europeans have Neanderthal heritage is no longer accepted as factual.

>>14232939
its easily debatable and highly contentious in the field. Both are possible and it all depends on how you want the setting to go.
Proof:

2006:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061030-neanderthals.html

2008:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080812-neandertal-dna.html

2010:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100506-science-neanderthals-humans-mated-interbred-d
na-gene/

Bump!

>>14232906
I like this idea. Other things, quick character creation due to character mortality. (Tables and d6's plox)

I like the whole insanity system too, maybe that could tie into the sky priests, perhaps teetering on the edge of insanity.

And warriors that are unconcerned with Sanity. They're too tough and 'ard to care.

Arise from your bog-burial, thread!

And stop giving me pictures of Uruk-hai when I'm looking for ancient cities, google.

>>14232939
aside from the fact that genetic sequencing proves that the human genome is approx 4% neanderthal man yeah

technically the first pyramids were built at the end of the neolithic. So this is a damned wide window. A neolithic setting could actually include a relatively advanced ancient egypt, minoan or mesopotamian civilization. Or the peak of civilization could be good ol' Catal Huyuk here

bump with mother goddess

couldn't find a picture of the one i wanted, but a lot of cave art hands have more or less than five fingers. This means one of several things:
1. Physically deformed people were sought out to be shamans
2. People lost a lost of fingers knapping flint (unlikely)
3. They were making hand signals in a kind of early written communication.

These threads make me happy.

If we're going to have shamans (npc or pc) I suggest we add some sort of rule for hallucinogens. Considering these are super important to early religious practices.

>technically the first pyramids were built at the end of the neolithic. So this is a damned wide window. A neolithic setting could actually include a relatively advanced ancient egypt, minoan or mesopotamian civilization. Or the peak of civilization could be good ol' Catal Huyuk here

Also a thousand times this.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread neolithic is a huge time frame. We could pull a hyboria, and just have civilizations from the entire neolithic time frame live together.

>>14240502
but then it just becomes Hyboria. I think its better to keep the civilizations in the setting small-scale and based on obscure real life examples. Like we could have a neolithic britain culture, or one based on the ruins in Malta, but Egypt and mesopotamia will drag too much bronze-age baggage with any adaptation.

Has it been stated that this world in the Neolithic time is Earth?

Could there be a succession of campaigns from the dawn of human evolution all the way up to the early Bronze Age.

Maybe the big story arc could be 'Which species becomes Master Race, which die out and which hybridize'.

For instance the Neanderthals could become the dominant influence of Northern Europe whilst Humans get the Mediterranean and where the Dead Sea will one day be.

>>14240502
make Dream Journey a skill if its a skill based system or a class ability if we're doing it in D20. A shaman can enter a trance to gain supernatural knowledge (or to remember things he has forgotten if this is a no-magic setting) using a hallucinogenic plant as a focus. He has to make some sort of intelligence or wisdom based role plus either his skill in dreaming or his shaman level. If he does not have the necessary plants or materials he can attempt to enter a dream trance while sleeping to recover the knowledge, but he takes a significant penalty on his roll to learn the information he seeks. At higher levels this penalty is reduced and eventually removed.

>>14240633
I remember a while ago there was a guy who wanted to run a campaign where the players were in a different era and place each session. He started with the paleolithic and wanted to go all the way to the heat death of the universe.

>>14240647
I like that a lot.

Perhaps make it two different things (obviously if you want "magic" or not)

Int/Wisdom roll to recover "dreams" and "memories" while asleep.

Sans (if we're going this route) for hallucinogens?

wish I was at my school

>>14240715
durp

*school comp

I have a lot more neolithic pics there...

List of available material for clothing that i can think of.

Course Linen from Flax in warmer climates.

Leather - from the auroch herds. Your not going to let the skin go to waste are you? Fuck no.

Fur - It kept that bear warm. Now its keeping me warm.

Wool - It kept that sheep warm. It falls off of them in summer anyway, give me the flint and I'll have it for myself.

Also would the bow strings be made out of human hair? It's easier to use than tendons from the food animals, is nice and strong when spun properly and is in plentiful supply.

>>14240874
don't forget they often used recycled people material too...

Leather made from Human skin (mostly opposition fell in battle)

Skulls used as cups, etc.

>>14240920
Speculation or Real?

Because if Real then holy fuck! these are your orc substitutes.

If Speculation then holy shit! these are your orc substitutes.

The difference is subtle.

I'm glad to see this thread got necro'd after I left it.

So, elegant gentlemen, I ask you this: Are we ready to start carving out the mechanical skeleton of the system, or do we need to further build the world and those in it?

>Because if Real then holy fuck! these are your orc substitutes.

Yeah, people have been using human leather for a long time.

It's the same tanning process, and easy to come by if you have a source of dead bodies (war)

Wow this thread is still here. It's the flint that keeps on giving. Anyway, I had a bunch of ideas today. Five stats and six classes: Strong Arms have high strength, Quick Foots have high speed, Sharp Eyes have high spot, Tribal Leaders have high bravery and persuasion, Mighty Shamans can heal and do magic, and Clever Thinkers' ability is to make up shit the GM can't argue with, eg, "This hill has a cliff on the other side, let's stampede the mammoths off it." Each has a skill that's useful both personally and to the team, encouraging balaced groups.

There's a set of simple central rules, going from basic stuff like adventuring to the stuff that stitches a campaign together (long distance travel, politics) and a "dynastic" aspect in case your chracter dies. Then special rules for palaeolithic, mesolithic and neolithic, plus each culture within it, so it's a modular approach and everyone can contribute rules for a culture.

Rules for social conflict/arguing/taunting, exposure and fatigue, stress from seeing terrifying things and being away from home, running away from things, the party inventing their tribe's village together, etc.

Maybe I'm a bit palaeo-centric, though.

>>14240971
Mesoamerican priests wore human skins, don't see why other people couldn't.

>>14241155

Would one of the more dice-light systems be more appropriate?

No one wants a clusterfuck of dice rolling to spoil the sense of utter bleakness that is not being at the top of the food chain.

>>14241247
i think those classes are a bit paleo-focused. Most of them still apply somewhat, but neolithic isn't about ignorant tribes of savages following mammoth hers. The neolithic is the age of the first cities, the first monuments, the first kings and priests and gods. What you're talking about works great for hunter-gatherers, not so much for the first farmers.

>>14241343
True.....but then, it would be awesome if you had enough anachronisms so that you had the late end of hunter gathers see the first cities.

Come on, you had it had to have happened a few times IRL, so what's the harm in putting it into fantasy?

>>14241369
true, and there would still be hunter-gatherers living on the fringes of civilization. Id say give the players the choice of what culture they want to be from with hunter gatherers and nomadic herders being playable alongside warriors and shaman-priests from farming cultures.

>>14241399
And in the entire world, you'd have 1 single city made from clay, bricks and stone somewhere in Egypt or Arabia.....

Say, would we even allow for PCs to be from this hypothetical city, which would by far be the most advanced civilization on the planet?

And how do we further differentiate between the cultures? Like, say, big game hunter vs small game hunter, fisherman vs sealer, herdsman vs plant grower...

Homo erectus - the "tinyheads" - could be retreating from the expansion of Homo sapiens, herds of them battling here and there as neandertal-equivalents grow and become the ogres of legend. Prosimians might dominate an island continent not far from the one dominated by apes, their aberrant radiation producing a eusocial culture of sorts. The prosimian continent could be reached by accident, given the ocean currents. Apes not unlike the genus Paranthropus might roam the grasslands in herds, their jaws and sagittal crests massive in comparison to their bodies, bulging guts processing roughage. Maybe a bipedal ape develops thumb claws and hunts them?

Homo sapiens would probably consists mostly of pastoral/horitcultural societies, changing their subsistence methodology across the seasons. There would remain hunter-gatherers competing with the "ogres" and "tinyheads". A few city-states would most likely arise, subsuming one another or cooperating. The beginnings of metallurgy are on the way...

here's how id break down the classes:

Hunter:
Hunters are both men from hunter-gatherer cultures and from the more civilized cultures seeking valuable meat or the thrill of the hunt. They have bonuses to foot speed, navigation and survival in the wilderness, and are proficient in the use of spears and bows as well as natural poisons and trap-making.

Warrior:
A fighter from a culture with enough surplus to have this as a dedicated profession (ie, not a hunter gatherer). He is proficient in fighting with a shield and with the use of clubs, axes and long spears. All young men in herding cultures likely take at least one level of warrior.

Shaman:
A ritual practitioner and holy man from a relatively uncivilized culture. He has detailed knowledge of survival in nature and of natural poisons, medicines and drugs. Can enter a dream trance in order to attempt to communicate with supernatural beings or to remember knowledge from his training. The most adept healer of all the classes by far.
(to be continued)

>>14241369
You make a good point. In Africa, the Bushmen are still around. Mathematics are unknown to them.

I would personally stick to only a few stats and a handful of skills to choose from. 5 skills such as fishing, weaving, storytelling, tracking and kicking, for example.

>>14241438
the neolithic is defined by the expansion of agriculture. There would be a lot of cities made of clay on pretty much every continent, but they would be relatively spread out. For example, if you lived in neolithic britain there might be a handful of towns of several thousand people with their own distinct customs and culture.

>>14241484
the bushmen are paleolithic bro

>>14241343
They're a bit palaeo. If we're doing the palaeo/meso/neo modular way, they could be the palaeo classes. Neo classes would be more generic, civilised ones like priest and soldier. But I think different tech levels colliding, and ahistorical mixups, is neat. Your tribe of "Brits" is between the "Mississippians" inland and the "Koreans" on the coast who trade with the "Egyptians".

Also, let's keep it to d6s and dice pools to keep it quick.

>>14241499
That just proves his point. There are still paleolithic cultures kicking around TODAY; surely, there'd still be a number of them in the neolithic era.

>>14241472
Why use classes? Seems restricting.

System suggestion: One Roll Engine. Its pretty simple (roll Stat+Skill in d10s and look for matching dice) and locational damage (pretty much a must for a game where losing an arm is a death sentence).

Shouldn't take much to convert it as needed.

>>14241472
continued

Wise Man:
A village elder, chieftain, or storyteller. Has bonuses to social interaction and persuasion. Knows a number of stories, songs, dances or chants that can be used to help convince others. Also possesses the benefit of ancient lore concerning animals, plants, mythological beings and people which he can recall.

Priest:
A ritual practitioner from an advanced farming culture. Knows a number of rituals and "miracles" which he can use to astound, frighten, convince or confuse people and animals. Gains the shaman's ability to enter dream trances at higher levels, but does not gain the ability to trance without the aid of hallucinogens.

any more suggestions?

>>14241506
that actually works really well for me. Your neolithic soldier may be real fancy with his flint broadsword, but the paleolithic hunter can kill him with one arrow if he finds the right insects first.

>>14241581

The Fisherman Kings of Doggerland?

Navigation is what makes a successful man. successful men become kings

>>14241506
so paleo classes would have to be based on attribute, since nobody has socially specialized roles. Neo and Meso classes are more based on what a person does for a living and what his skills are rather than which attribute is highest.

>>14241438 bricks and stone somewhere in Egypt or Arabia.....

I'd play it safe and have the City in (what is now) Iraq, a proto-Akkadian settlement. An Ur-Ur, almost.

The original BRP booklet provided a system for Bronze Age, no magic roleplay. In the adventure provided, you had to fend off a bear to get your cart to an ur-market.

>>14241472
>>14241581
What I'm seeing here is:
>Ranger
>Fighter
>Druid
>Expert
>Cleric

>>14241552
ORE would work, it's quick and simple and quite brutal, I think? So it's REIGN OF STONE or something. Bonus: other games can use the rules for weather or whatever.

OTOH, "classes" could just be "skills and bonuses" builds, if you see what I mean.

>>14241472
>Hunter: Hunters are both men from hunter-gatherer cultures and from the more civilized cultures seeking valuable meat or the thrill of the hunt. They have bonuses to foot speed, navigation and survival in the wilderness, and are proficient in the use of spears and bows as well as natural poisons and trap-making.

Warrior: A fighter from a culture with enough surplus to have this as a dedicated profession (ie, not a hunter gatherer). He is proficient in fighting with a shield and with the use of clubs, axes and long spears. All young men in herding cultures likely take at least one level of warrior.

Seems pretty solid, but perhaps some more options for each. Perhaps a hunter might sacrifice his bow and poison skills to pick up one or two of the weapon proficiencies the warrior has (but not shield proficiency....that's definitely something warrior-exclusive) if his culture has encountered the specific weapon frequently. Meanwhile, the warrior can gain archery at the expense of one of his weapon proficiencies. The warrior should also have some benefits related to him coming from a more advanced civilization. Both classes should have the same hitpoint mechanics. And if they seem to similar, just remember the distinction.....warriors are better at fighting people. Hunters are better at fighting animals.

>>14241649
wise man seems more bard to me.

>>14241662
yeah that's good. Bow and poison isnt much good if youre hunting certain kinds of animals after all, and plenty of soldiers would have to specialize in archery. Maybe we should give the hunter bonuses against animals too?

Also, the shield should be a big fucking deal. It shouldn't do much against wolves or a bear, but against a person it majorly increases your odds of survival.

>>14241581
>Wise Man: A village elder, chieftain, or storyteller. Has bonuses to social interaction and persuasion. Knows a number of stories, songs, dances or chants that can be used to help convince others. Also possesses the benefit of ancient lore concerning animals, plants, mythological beings and people which he can recall.

This is cool, and should definitely be in the game....but we need something more.....player character. Like a wiseman's apprentice. What would we call that?

>>14241740
Soothsayer?
Heir Apparent?
That Smart Arse in Training?
Story Teller?
Bard?

I can't recall the name of the site, but i read about a very interesting neolithic burial in britain. One body belongs to a obviously high-status young boy adorned in jewelry. Analysis of his bones shows that he was sickly and suffered from a number of degenerative diseases. Analysis of his teeth revealed him to have been born in Britain. Beside him is buried the body of a large, middle-aged man. The man is buried with an impressive array of weaponry. His bones show signs of obvious wear and tear including parry fractures and animal marks which indicates that he was a seasoned warrior. Analysis of his teeth reveals he was born thousands of miles away and must have traveled to Britain.

>>14241767
Soothsayer is more about being an oracle.

I'd go with story teller or hell just wiseman's apprentice.

>>14241800
i like story teller better

>>14241649
how does a class based around preforming magic tricks and doing shrooms remind you of the tanking, uber-powerful magical cleric?

Some things that were nonexistant/a REALLY big deal back then that everyone has been taking for granted for millennia:
maps
calenders
writing of any sort
mathematics of any sort
a lot of other stuff

>>14241697
One more thought along that line......the Hunter should be a better dirty fighter than the Warrior. Or at least, a better extreme close range fighter.

Think about it. Sometimes a wolf or a bear will jump on top of you and all you got is yourself and your knife. So the hunter trains his son in wrestling and knifeplay. The warrior taught his son to fight standing.....

>>14241853
even the farming cultures shouldnt have maps or any kind of sophisticated mathematics or writing.

However the calendars wouldn't be that big of a deal. Hunter-gatherers would be able to judge the change of seasons and tell time by the passing of lunar phases. Same thing with the agriculturalists, but they would probably use a solar calendar instead.

>>14241859
ok, give the hunter bonuses to grapple. And maybe add a code of honor to the warrior class.

Also, a lot of early civilizations had "warrior fraternities" of berserkers. Maybe adding the ability to go berserk using hallucinogens could be added to warrior?

>>14241883
No words/maps means that all directions should be from word of mouth.

Players should get...not lost, but off track a lot.

>>14241912
>Also, a lot of early civilizations had "warrior fraternities" of berserkers. Maybe adding the ability to go berserk using hallucinogens could be added to warrior?
Really? Which civilizations might those be?

Regardless, you could have anyone could go berserk from consuming funny mushrooms. The warriors deal should be that he can do it repeatedly with relatively little harm to himself.

>>14241926
Chances are they'd develop pictograms or some other simple array of symbols.

>>14241926
absolutely. Unless one of them or someone with them is familiar with the area they should spend a lot of time wondering where the fuck they are and how far they are from where they were trying to go.

>>14241944
Only get Bezerker Shroom ability if Shaman is present in the party.

>>14241949
Gentlemen, I present you with the Inukshuk.

>>14240971
>However the calendars wouldn't be that big of a deal. Hunter-gatherers would be able to judge the change of seasons and tell time by the passing of lunar phases. Same thing with the agriculturalists, but they would probably use a solar calendar instead.

It's really not that simple. Remember, without any mathematics at all, just counting how many moons it's been since the flowers last bloomed is not easy. And a solar calender? Do you have any idea how difficult that is to develop from scratch? It's certainly not something you can just handwave like that. People say that stonehenge was built for this purpose, and it wasn't great at it. Really, how are you supposed to know how many days are in a year if you can't count above ten? Astronomy isn't of trivial difficulty, especially when staring at the sky at night is dangerous and everyone thinks it's a sign that you've been possessed by evil spirits or something.

>>14241944
actually that was mostly an indo-european thing. Its probably what allowed them to conquer everyone so effectively. And its also probably out of place in the neolithic, more of a bronze age thing.

>>14241949

Well yes they would probably have pictographs.


What I meant is... When the only person who has traveled the area you want to go (that you know of) lives in village X and that's a ways a way and he hasn't been to that area in Y years.... descriptions are bound to not be as effective.

"Go X at the spirit rock" doesn't help you when that spirit rock has been destroyed etc.

>>14241971
i like that

>>14241971
And he can only do it relatively safely if he's part of the fraternity of berserkers, which should come with its own costs.

>>14241991
hunter-gatherers had a relatively sophisticated understanding of time. They had to since they had to know when to move to the next camp. With that said they would tend to judge on natural cues more than anything else.

And as for agriculturalists, maybe that could be a function of the priest? He actually knows what day it is and how many days there are until the equinox.

>>14242029
Neolithic Fight Club.

>>14242029
a shaman can only learn the secret of brewing the sacred berserker drink at a great personal cost, perhaps an eye, ear or finger.

likewise a warrior can only learn the secrets of the battle-rage and harnessing the drink by undergoing an incredibly painful initiation ritual and forsaking all family ties to embrace the brotherhood.

>>14242112
Bingo.

>>14242112
Would a Tribe be able to afford specialization to that degree?

>>14242061
>And as for agriculturalists, maybe that could be a function of the priest? He actually knows what day it is and how many days there are until the equinox.

Only the real hot-shot ones. Not every little village will have someone who knows what an equinox is. Maybe that could be a sort of a quest: you must bring word of the coming of the time for planting from the high priest to the many villages of the empire (many being fourteen for a total population of a couple thousand people over fifty miles)

>>14242318
No tribe could. You need a civilization with a large number of expendable men.

>>14242453
With late neolithic you are getting to the point where this is possible.

I think instead of arguing what is or isn't neolithic we should just create something where you can modify it to fit whatever "era" in the neolithic you prefer.

>>14242349
empires don't exist until the bronze age. At most you have a city-state and its allies and subsidiaries who are controlled through marital unions and (more importantly) religious ritual.

>>14242624
I was using the word empire somewhat sarcastically. Fourteen villages over about fifty miles with a total population of a couple thousand isn't what most people would consider an empire or even a small country, but might have been considerable in some places back then. Also, this bringing of the word of the planting time from the head priest would appear to be a religious ritual to some degree.

>>14242600
yeah thats what we've been trying to do with classes varying from civilized to hunter-gatherer.

>>14242766
>classes

There's the problem right there.

Just do this:
-Come up with a skills and perks list. Sort those skills/perks into categories like "Universal" "Level A," "Level B," and so on. "Level" is just a placeholder term for different tech/society levels. So you could have Stone Age specific skills (e.g. flintknapping) , Bronze Age specific skills (e.g. writing, metalworking) and so on.

-Next, come up with "Backgrounds." These are broad categories that either just refer to time period (Neolithic, Bronze Age, etc) or profession (Hunter/Gatherer, Artisan, etc) or both (Bronze Age Priest).

-Give those Backgrounds restrictions and perks relating to skill lists. For example, the Stone Age type backgrounds might bar characters from grabbing skills from anything that isn't the Universal or Stone Age lists, give them a bonus to their allowed skills, whatever.

>>14243063
I agree with this.

That will ease the process greatly. So now we don't have to say "no because that wasnt till X"

Now we just throw it in that category.

This sounds like Conan-lite.

That being said you could borrow certain elements from Conan to help with this. Maybe the current Neolithic Era has come after a previous era of empires now crumbled and filled with cosmic terrors and secrets man was not meant to know- like the secrets of metalcraft.

Don't forget that a lot of intertribal conflict wasn't necessarily to the death. A lot of these fights were resource raids, taking food and animal skins, and also new tribe members.

Need wives to mother your children? Cross the hills and take. Beat an opposing force? Kill the wounded, but the rest are inducted into your tribe. These actions ensured genetic diversity and were practiced by most such tribes, I think.

This pretty much already exists, see pic.

I can put the PDF up on mediafire if there's enough interest.

>>14243445
I'm not saying this isn't true (it makes perfect sense)

This tends to be a trait associated more with later American-Indian culture.

You've heard the tales. The reason why you don't go into the woods alone.
One hunter said he'd seen one once. On the treeline in the distance. His dogs howled and tried to run the thing down, but it was gone as quick as it had appeared.

An older man, considered wise by the group, told a story that his father had heard. That a hunting party had found one injured in the forest. It yowled and babbled like a bird or a wild cat. When they tied it to a tree it gnawed its own leg off to escape.

The next night they came out of the forest. Flint knives had cut the watchman's throat as he napped. It was only when the hunters brandished boughs taken from their fire that the things retreated back into the woodland.

>>14243288
The great cities have risen and fallen. Civilization's grip on mankind has grown weak and arthritic. Dark forces seek to renew forgotten covenents, and primordial beasts reclaim the wilderness. Out of the frozen North, a MAN emerges, a man of a BARBARIC AGE, whose MERCILESS SAVAGERY may be the only key to his SURVIVAL. They call him...

KORGOTH!

They have the aspect of men, of course. They walk on two legs, and use spears and knives.

But what man doesn't know how to make fire? What man babbles like an infant instead of talking?

Wipe them out where you find them. Push them back to the mountains.
But remember that they watch from the treeline. Waiting for the fire to fade and die.

Don't let your fire go out.

needs more of this

If you haven't seen "Quest for Fire", ch ch check it when planning this setting.

How the hell did we go from THIS to THAT.
Some of those hunter-gatherers had an amazing grasp of anatomy. (understandable, considering)

It's almost as if after this art was made, no one attempted to draw realistic portrayals of anything until the renaissance came around.

What the hell.
(Massive generalisation; greco-roman sculpture and stuff was amazing. But examples are surpisingly few)

>>14243063
that works. Maybe let people take a certain number of abilities based on their backgrounds. Like a hunter gatherer could take proficiency with bows, herbs and lore, but not bronze-working or shield use. That way people could mix and match class abilities to get the build to match the concept they had.

New idea:
characters gain a number of mental/social specialties equal to three plus the sum of the dice modifiers for all of their mental and social stats. And a number of physical specialties equal to three plus the sum of their physical characteristics.

Here's what im working with in terms of system right now:

six basic stats:
Strength, Agility, Endurance, Reasoning, Judgment, Force of Personality.
Players roll 6 d10 at the beginning of chargen and assign them to the characteristics as they see fit. Every two points an ability is above or under 5 adds another one to the modifier (so +1 for 7, -2 for 2 etc.).

characters get mental skills equal to three plus the sum of their mental stat modifiers. The same goes for physical skills. They distribute skill points restricted by their background and some skills require a certain level in a basic attribute for a character for be able to take them. Multiple points can be invested into a single skill to make the character an expert up to a level of three. Skill rolls are 1d10 plus attribute modifier plus skill plus appropriate modifiers versus a set DC. They add one point to a roll using a skill for every point they have in said skill up to a maximum of +3

sound good so far?

>>14245927
combat is resolved by opposed checks by the two parties. The attacking party makes a roll to hit, opposed by the other party's roll to parry, block or dodge if he is aware of the attack. The severity of the hit should depend on the margin of success in the opposed check. If the attacker beats the defender by a small margin then he landed a glancing blow, if he succeeded by a large margin then he scored a devastating blow that kills, incapacitates or maims the other combatant. Some sort of system for determining which limb was damaged is absolutely necessary. A blow to the chest or head should force the character to make an endurance roll to avoid becoming disoriented or unconscious.

>>14245718
I'd probably go with the player picks X amount of skills they have access to and get a bonus with and/or the max ranks in that skill are lifted for them. That way you can have "hunter gatherer warrior" "hunter gatherer shaman" "hunter gatherer X."

And if you want crossover between time periods, modify backgrounds like so:
-Either bar characters from having non-time period skills until after chargen (having to spend XP and RP time to learn a point or two of Metalsmithing)
-Or let them take it at chargen, but at a steep points cost.

In both cases, probably set some sort of intelligence-based limit on how much "advanced" skills a character from a lower tech level can have.

>>14245927
>>14246013
Or...stop reinventing the wheel and use ORE or some other system? Its a good start, but been done before several times.