Scale

Over a decade ago I wrote a post about using Heroic/Homeric/Bronze Age/Mycenaean Greece as a setting for Barbarians of Lemuria.  Well, I was thinking about Ancient Greece again this morning and I got to wondering how big a map hex map of equivalent size would be.  If you total up the area of the Peloponnese, Attica, Boeotia and Euboea it comes out to around 11,340 sq/m¹.  If you put that in terms of a 6 mile hex map, that is an 18x18 hex map!  That's not a large map compared to some hexcrawls and sandboxes.  Someone, I'm not quite sure who, also did a 6 mile hex map of Greece, the Aegean and Western Turkey.  The entire map is 99x81 hexes.  Smaller if you shave off some of the sea hexes on the western and southern edges of the map.

There is soooo much history and mythology crammed into this area that it boggles my mind.  It could be a giant playground for a game.  A GM could take just a portion of it, such as one of the four areas I mentioned above, because it's still crammed with potential.

In Classical times this area contained Athens and Sparta and the consequences of their rivalry and machinations.  There was also the important cities of Corinth and Thebes to round out the four biggies.  Olympia and its games were located there.  Many battles were fought in this area and much diplomacy was conducted.  If you go back to the Bronze Age/Mythological era you can add so much more.  Mycenae, Argos, Pylos and Megara.  Many of the mythical beasts roamed its wilds, too.

This changes my perspective on how big a map has to be to be effective.  I've always liked the idea of Chicagowiz's "Just Three Hexes" campaign starter and this, in a way, reinforces that.

¹ All numbers are approximate and for demonstration purposes only

Doratas & Philosophia

 Another thing I did during my quiet time was create a game...kinda.

I've always wanted to write/create a roleplaying game.  I've never had the discipline nor the imagination to do so.  I've had thoughts on how to heavily house rule something like White Box to fit a certain vision but I haven't got around to it for the reasons above.  So I cheated.  I hacked Lasers & Feelings.

Lasers & Feelings is an ultra-lite game that has been hacked in nearly every way you can think.  It is very easy to modify and change to whatever genre you want.  Heck, there's actually a template where you can just fill in the blanks to make your version of the game.  So I did it.  See, cheating.  But at least I did something.  And it might help spur me on to other things.

Thus, I present a draft of Doratas & Philosophia (Spears & Philosophy).  It is a mashup of Mythical and Archaic Greece for the players and GM to use as their playground.

Click Here

I used several inspirations and resources.  Lasers & Feelings, of course.  I used used Template Hack for L&F and {{Blanks}} & [[Spaces]] to help me organize the document and make sure I didn't miss anything. I also looked to the L&F hack Glory & Gold and good old Mazes & Minotaurs to spark my imagination (i.e. plunder shamelessly.)

Heroes of Hellas

Heroes of Hellas is out!  I've been waiting for this one.  The Barbarians of Lemuria rules set combined with Heroic Age Greece.  I can't wait to get this!

You can get it here.

You can see some of the art on the artist's blog here.  I really like the illustrations I've seen and am looking forward to seeing more.

Barbarians of Mycenae

I was reading through my copy of Gurps Greece the other day when it struck me. Heroic/Homeric/Bronze Age/Mycenaean Greece would be a great setting for Barbarians of Lemuria. Think about it. The heroes of the time were larger than life, kick butt types. Think of Hercules or Achilles. Or they could be extremely wily as Odysseus was. Most of them did not use magic directly though some used magic-type items. The items the gods lent Perseus fall into this category.

Also you could scale the level of fantastic to suit your tastes. You could play it almost strictly "historical" by having inter-kingdom conflict, trade and social interplay be the main focus of the game. You could include realistic depictions of the sources of the myths. The origin of the centaur myth comes to mind. Or you could take it up a notch to include some of the real creatures faced by various heroes. I'm thinking of the Nemean lion, the various boars and bulls, the terrible birds, etc. Real creatures made particularly fierce or nasty. Or you could take it up another level by including the non-realistic creatures such as the Minotaur or the hydra. And finally you could have a full blown fantasy world including meddling gods, an array of monsters, and weird demi-humans. Or you could mix-and-match to taste.

Has anybody thought of this in connection with Barbarians of Lemuria? Has anybody created stats for Greek heroes? How would you stat up Hercules, for example? Any thoughts, comments or suggestions?

I also posted this on Rpg.net here.