As promised, a thread where all of us can set down our ideas for Neolithic goodness based on The Sundered World chapter of the Dark Eras book. The main purpose of this project will be to expand The Sundered World into a full-blown crossover setting covering most, if not all, of the different gamelines (minus Mummy, of course) and how they dealt with this ancient, far stranger, world as opposed to the modern Chronicles of Darkness. The Sundered World is more than just the ancient past of the Chronicles of Darkness, it's a time of myth and legend, when gods really did walk astride the earth. Pangaeans and Shadow Gods occasionally defy Urfarah's great law, the High Chieftains of Arcadia and the first of the Gentry are making contracts with humanity, laying the groundwork for what is to come, Azar himself and the Temakh wander up and down the Nile.
It's a terrifying time to be human, but humanity is hardly helpless. I don't have any intro fiction in mind, so I'll jump right into ideas of other regions and other cultures that we could start looking into. I'm sure the ideas will come in time.
glamourweaver , Second Chances , atamajakki here's the thread. Go nuts.
*****
Note: These first few initial ideas are plucked from The Sundered World thread in the Mage forums.
And now, I'll add to them.
The Harappan Culture: The predecessors to the Indus Valley Civilization, they were from the same region (north-western India along the Pakistan border) and were also a copper-wielding, stamp-using civilization. Their focus in terms of sacrifice and worship seems to be Bull, but graffiti and statuettes of 'dancing girls' that may represent an idea of something like an apsara are also present. Perhaps these people have more contact with the Fae than their contemporaries did. They made jewelry in copper and semiprecious stones, importing lapis lazuli from as far away as what would now be called Afghanistan. They were just as agrarian and pastoral as the Vinca, but unlike the Vinca they had more advanced medical knowledge, even performing primitive dentistry.
Samarra Culture: Neighbours to the Halaf, they are highly successful pottery makers and exporters, trading with the Halaf to the North-West, and the Ki-En-Gir to the South-East. They are highly sedentary, having figured out the mysteries of irrigation and farming mostly flax. Evidence from their settlements indicate highly organized social structure more comparable to later civilizations than their contemporaries.
Ki-En-Gir: To the south of the Halaf and the Samarra, this civilization centres around Eridu. The Ki-En-Gir are the first to possess hereditary Chiefs and Kings, quite possibly as a result of being linked to a hereditary administrative caste the managed grain and the temples. There was a three-way division in early Ki-En-Gir society, between the intensive subsistence farmers, the nomadic pastoralist herdsmen, and the hunter-gatherer fishermen in their reed huts. They worship the great Pangaean Ocean, and in time will develop the first sailing vessels. But even now, they are beginning to hear calls from Outside, a place they will eventually call the Abzu.
Cardium Pottery Culture: Centered in Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, this culture has spread West along the south of what would be France, and East into what the Greeks would call Epirus to the point that the farthest reaches of this culture could be called neighbours of the Vinca. These people were hunters, farmers, and fishermen, with cockles as a staple part of the diet and the discarded shells serving as tools to make the designs on their distinctive styles of pottery. They could probably sail, as they imported and exported obsidian all throughout their territory, even on the islands, and even across the sea int what would later become Carthage.
Sesklo Culture: Dwelling in what is now Greece and Macedonia, these people were sedentary farmers, living in relatively small dwellings of wood and mud brick possessing only one or two rooms, but large villages of between 500-800 dwellings and up to 5,000 inhabitants. They also possessed some of the first multi-level buildings. Their pottery mostly uses flame motifs, and they made cups and bowl in finely glazed earthenware. They were mostly shepherds and goatherds, but they had swine and cattle as well. They worship the Mother Goddess of the Halaf, along with Bull and the other major gods of the Vinca. They cremated their dead, developed the first megaron-type buildings, and were the first to use the meandering labyrinth pattern. In time, their Wise would pick up the knowledge of sympathetic magic from the Halaf.
Hamangia Culture: Living on the coast of the Black Sea, quite possibly founded by Halaf colonists, these people are among the finest stoneworkers in the region. Statues from this culture called "The Seated Woman" and "The Thinker" are hailed as masterworks of their time. (They also resemble the Pangaean from the chapter art) They built small rectangular homes of one or two rooms on stone foundations with daub walls. Their settlements are typically built on a rectangular grid.
Bukk Culture: An eastern splinter of the LBK to the North-East of the Vinca, they are more advanced than their western counterparts, and may even rival the Vinca in terms of sophistication. Their pottery is considered the finest of all the LBK, with greater diversity of form, including tall stands, jars with feet, and globular bowls. The pottery is painted and engraved with fine geometric lines, more complex and regular than those of their counterparts, and they also made abstract human figurines covered in symbols. Their main source of trade was obsidian, of which they made hundreds and hundreds of examples of fine tools, and their villages were often up in the mountains, on foothills, slopes, and in ravines. The homes were sometimes partially, or even wholly subterranean. Their homes were small and rectangular, only a few meters wide and twice as long. These people appeared to command significant trade, as they have many examples of spiny oyster shells, which are theorized to be a form of currency, all the way from the Mediterranean. In addition, jars full of finished knives have been found, ready for transport. Unlike the Vinca, they don't appear to have separated the living and the dead. They sometimes buried the deceased under the house, and didn't appear to offer any sort of grave goods. In a Bukk village, the living and the dead inhabited the same space. Caves may have been sacred to them.
Nabta Playa: A mysterious culture from an internally drained basin in Nubia, this small tribe was almost 500 miles away from the Nile, and was significantly more advanced than most of its contemporaries, even compared to the Vinca. They were shepherds and goatherds who also raised cattle, digging deep wells in important places (possibly doubling as entrances to the Ocean Beneath the World?), building in stone above and below-ground, as well as planning their villages along strict arrangements. The people were partially nomadic, moving from settlement to settlement in order to keep the cattle fed and watered, but returning to this central village when the summer rains made it possible to maintain the herds. Here, they offered bloody sacrifice to Bull, entombing the corpses in an underground stone chamber, a reflection of the Cults of Ptah, Hathor, and Apis to come. However, these people may also have had a connection to the Temakh, for they possessed a stone circle at this central site aligned to the turning of Orion and Sirius, known to the ancients as Sah and Sopdet- the stars of Azar and Aset. Perhaps they are early devotees to the Restless Stars, or perhaps the Wise of these people are simply thorns in the side of the Temakh, knowledgeable rebels too far outside their- current -range of influence.
It's a terrifying time to be human, but humanity is hardly helpless. I don't have any intro fiction in mind, so I'll jump right into ideas of other regions and other cultures that we could start looking into. I'm sure the ideas will come in time.
glamourweaver , Second Chances , atamajakki here's the thread. Go nuts.
*****
Note: These first few initial ideas are plucked from The Sundered World thread in the Mage forums.
Originally posted by glamourweaver
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The Harappan Culture: The predecessors to the Indus Valley Civilization, they were from the same region (north-western India along the Pakistan border) and were also a copper-wielding, stamp-using civilization. Their focus in terms of sacrifice and worship seems to be Bull, but graffiti and statuettes of 'dancing girls' that may represent an idea of something like an apsara are also present. Perhaps these people have more contact with the Fae than their contemporaries did. They made jewelry in copper and semiprecious stones, importing lapis lazuli from as far away as what would now be called Afghanistan. They were just as agrarian and pastoral as the Vinca, but unlike the Vinca they had more advanced medical knowledge, even performing primitive dentistry.
Samarra Culture: Neighbours to the Halaf, they are highly successful pottery makers and exporters, trading with the Halaf to the North-West, and the Ki-En-Gir to the South-East. They are highly sedentary, having figured out the mysteries of irrigation and farming mostly flax. Evidence from their settlements indicate highly organized social structure more comparable to later civilizations than their contemporaries.
Ki-En-Gir: To the south of the Halaf and the Samarra, this civilization centres around Eridu. The Ki-En-Gir are the first to possess hereditary Chiefs and Kings, quite possibly as a result of being linked to a hereditary administrative caste the managed grain and the temples. There was a three-way division in early Ki-En-Gir society, between the intensive subsistence farmers, the nomadic pastoralist herdsmen, and the hunter-gatherer fishermen in their reed huts. They worship the great Pangaean Ocean, and in time will develop the first sailing vessels. But even now, they are beginning to hear calls from Outside, a place they will eventually call the Abzu.
Cardium Pottery Culture: Centered in Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, this culture has spread West along the south of what would be France, and East into what the Greeks would call Epirus to the point that the farthest reaches of this culture could be called neighbours of the Vinca. These people were hunters, farmers, and fishermen, with cockles as a staple part of the diet and the discarded shells serving as tools to make the designs on their distinctive styles of pottery. They could probably sail, as they imported and exported obsidian all throughout their territory, even on the islands, and even across the sea int what would later become Carthage.
Sesklo Culture: Dwelling in what is now Greece and Macedonia, these people were sedentary farmers, living in relatively small dwellings of wood and mud brick possessing only one or two rooms, but large villages of between 500-800 dwellings and up to 5,000 inhabitants. They also possessed some of the first multi-level buildings. Their pottery mostly uses flame motifs, and they made cups and bowl in finely glazed earthenware. They were mostly shepherds and goatherds, but they had swine and cattle as well. They worship the Mother Goddess of the Halaf, along with Bull and the other major gods of the Vinca. They cremated their dead, developed the first megaron-type buildings, and were the first to use the meandering labyrinth pattern. In time, their Wise would pick up the knowledge of sympathetic magic from the Halaf.
Hamangia Culture: Living on the coast of the Black Sea, quite possibly founded by Halaf colonists, these people are among the finest stoneworkers in the region. Statues from this culture called "The Seated Woman" and "The Thinker" are hailed as masterworks of their time. (They also resemble the Pangaean from the chapter art) They built small rectangular homes of one or two rooms on stone foundations with daub walls. Their settlements are typically built on a rectangular grid.
Bukk Culture: An eastern splinter of the LBK to the North-East of the Vinca, they are more advanced than their western counterparts, and may even rival the Vinca in terms of sophistication. Their pottery is considered the finest of all the LBK, with greater diversity of form, including tall stands, jars with feet, and globular bowls. The pottery is painted and engraved with fine geometric lines, more complex and regular than those of their counterparts, and they also made abstract human figurines covered in symbols. Their main source of trade was obsidian, of which they made hundreds and hundreds of examples of fine tools, and their villages were often up in the mountains, on foothills, slopes, and in ravines. The homes were sometimes partially, or even wholly subterranean. Their homes were small and rectangular, only a few meters wide and twice as long. These people appeared to command significant trade, as they have many examples of spiny oyster shells, which are theorized to be a form of currency, all the way from the Mediterranean. In addition, jars full of finished knives have been found, ready for transport. Unlike the Vinca, they don't appear to have separated the living and the dead. They sometimes buried the deceased under the house, and didn't appear to offer any sort of grave goods. In a Bukk village, the living and the dead inhabited the same space. Caves may have been sacred to them.
Nabta Playa: A mysterious culture from an internally drained basin in Nubia, this small tribe was almost 500 miles away from the Nile, and was significantly more advanced than most of its contemporaries, even compared to the Vinca. They were shepherds and goatherds who also raised cattle, digging deep wells in important places (possibly doubling as entrances to the Ocean Beneath the World?), building in stone above and below-ground, as well as planning their villages along strict arrangements. The people were partially nomadic, moving from settlement to settlement in order to keep the cattle fed and watered, but returning to this central village when the summer rains made it possible to maintain the herds. Here, they offered bloody sacrifice to Bull, entombing the corpses in an underground stone chamber, a reflection of the Cults of Ptah, Hathor, and Apis to come. However, these people may also have had a connection to the Temakh, for they possessed a stone circle at this central site aligned to the turning of Orion and Sirius, known to the ancients as Sah and Sopdet- the stars of Azar and Aset. Perhaps they are early devotees to the Restless Stars, or perhaps the Wise of these people are simply thorns in the side of the Temakh, knowledgeable rebels too far outside their- current -range of influence.
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