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Old 12-11-2017, 06:51 AM   #21
Turhan's Bey Company
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

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Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti View Post
TL 2 is just fine for mostly-familiar fantasy. I don't think there's anything in The Lord of the Rings or the Conan stories that's exclusively TL 3+? (Except brandy or something like it in the Shire, I think. Hobbits are technologically advanced in beverages.)
Middle Earth has fireworks. Gandalf's are magically assisted, but I get the impression that he's not the sole purveyor. And I believe that the Conan stories have, here and there, things like knights in plate armor and transparent glass. There are also things which imply somewhat higher technology. The availability of brass, for example, suggests an advanced ability to produce zinc. There's little which can't be rationalized or explained away, and as Phil notes the differences between TL2 and TL3, from the point of view of adventuring equipment, are subtle, but both feel more like TL3 than TL2 to me, particularly with Howard's gleeful pastiche approach to world-building.
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Old 12-11-2017, 07:14 AM   #22
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

Conan feels appropriately TL 2 to me, although I've read Sprague de Camp more recently than Howard.
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Old 12-11-2017, 07:21 AM   #23
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

Howard, to borrow someone else’s comment, sets his Conan stories on giant 3D stage sets. Some of them are stage sets of TL1 places, and some of them represent TL4 places. Sweating the details may be unwise.

Whereas Tolkien sets his stories in a place where he wanted to live; a version of the world of his beloved late TL2/early TL3 heroic sagas, but with TL5 domestic comforts. Sweating the details et cetera.
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Old 12-11-2017, 09:02 AM   #24
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

To be fair, Yag-Kosha's race is probably TL 12^... :D
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Old 12-11-2017, 09:35 AM   #25
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

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Howard, to borrow someone else’s comment, sets his Conan stories on giant 3D stage sets. Some of them are stage sets of TL1 places, and some of them represent TL4 places. Sweating the details may be unwise.
.
Yes, some of the kingdom's are definitely TL4 (or 4-1 however you want to describe Renaissance without gunpowder).

Aquilonia and Nemedia have knights in plate who fight with greatswords. Call it c. 1500 AD.

Zingara and Argos have TL4 sailing ships without cannons. Zingarans also have advanced rapier fighting. Maybe even late 1600s as Howard borrowed from pirate stories there.

The Turanians are the Turks from around the time of the Siege of Vienna with Yezdigerd standing in for Sulieman the Magnificent.

Stories from Vendyha and Iranstan actually borrow from Howard's Indian historical fiction set during the Raj. They are at least the equal of the Moguls.

None of the other Hyborian Kingdoms are below TL3.

The Cimmerians, Aesir, Vanir, the Black Kingdoms and all those "hill" tribes are at least TL2 because they work iron rather than bronze. The Picts are TL0 because they work no metal.

Stygia and Shem also come in under the "iron rather than bronze" clause even though they mimic even earlier historical eras.

Khitai is rather China-like but mostly TL3 without signs of China's early TL4 things.
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Old 12-11-2017, 10:09 AM   #26
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

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The availability of brass, for example, suggests an advanced ability to produce zinc.
'Proper' zinc brass has been around for long enough to be TL2 quite easily, and the Romans used it for coins. Pure zinc is more like TL3, but you don't need to be able to make that to make brass. Of course this doesn't mean that it's common enough at TL2 that doorknobs are commonly made of it. OTOH, Bilbo was a fairly rich man, and it may well have appealed to him or one of his ancestors to have a doorknob made of a rare and moderately expensive metal.
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Old 12-11-2017, 02:30 PM   #27
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

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Higher frequency of spear users (depending on culture) including a few more higher status users too.
Swords were almost always a secondary weapon.
Spears were always a battlefield staple all the way to near modern times.
Bayonets are just heavy spearheads that you put on rifles after all.
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Old 12-11-2017, 06:31 PM   #28
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

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'Proper' zinc brass has been around for long enough to be TL2 quite easily, and the Romans used it for coins.
A lot of Roman armour that is claimed to be bronze is actually brass.
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Old 12-11-2017, 06:40 PM   #29
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

How does brass armor compare to bronze?
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Old 12-11-2017, 07:54 PM   #30
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Default Re: "Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

There is a technical difference between brass and bronze?
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