Looking for resources for a game set in Early Middle Ages Europe

[cptbutton]

Fiction references, with all the hazards that implies, but as far as I know an author pretty good at research:

"Better In The Dark" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is set in 10th Century Saxony, with her good guy vampire doing his usual bit.

Another in the series "Night Blooming" is set at Charlemange's court in the 7th century.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

GURPS Camelot takes several approaches to examining the King Arthur mythology, including examining both the cinematic legends (which tend to place the mythology in the early middle ages) and the historical figures the legends were based on (which lived in the very early middle ages/dark ages at the end of the Roman period).

A fiction reference for this period, but a bit too early and too far west, is Poul Anderson "The King of Ys" tetraology in Brittany in the very late western Roman Empire. Especially the last, where the locals decide that they'd better form their own kingdom, since the empire they are nominally subject to has become pretty useless for them.

[Stormcrow]

Try looking in the young adult section of your local library. I've found that history books in the YA section tend to be better organized for RPG purposes, including lots of pictures and diagrams that convey a lot of information without words. You'll often get costumes, food, building and land layouts, and maps, as well as the boiled-down essence of the period and useful factoids.

Your particular time and place is not the most popular in history books, so you may have to go hunting.

[phayman53]

Would someone who has the 3rd edition Vikings please answer a few questions:

1) how much of Europe does the map of the Viking world cover? How detailed is it?

2) does it talk about the Viking raids of northern Europe other than Normandy/Northern France and England in any detail (I feel like most sources focus on these almost exclusively)?

3) is there much detail about the societies other than the Vikings since my characters won't be Vikings but will probably have to fight them and interact with them some?

Thank you!

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by phayman53

I think I am going to be running a GURPS campaign that will be either historical fiction or historical fantasy set in the Early Middle Ages, probably in the Saxony region of Germany. The game is going to be set in about A.D. 850. This is the period where the Viking raids are increasing and the Carolingian Empire declines (it has already fractured in to three pieces, formalized by the Treaty of Verdun in 843).

Depending on what my players want, it will either be:

1) Historical fiction with heroic but not cinematic characters. They are trying to help restore order and safety in their corner of northern Germany (possibly in service of a local lord). No magic, no supernatural monsters, etc.

2) Historical fantasy with more cinematic heroes. This world would reflects the historical setting, but there are monstrous dangers in the wild places and dark magic may be behind powerful forces. This would be more sword and sorcery with most of the heroes lacking overt supernatural powers. I also may or may not replace some peoples with fantasy races depending on what kind of game my players want--orc raiders instead of vikings, centaur raiders from the steps, that sort of thing.

In either case I would like, as much as possible, to get the 'feel' of mid 9th century Norther Europe right. I love history and one of my players in particular is also a history lover, so I think the effort would be appreciated.

That said, this area of history is not my specialty and I was wondering if there are any good resources to help me flesh out this particular time and place. I especially would like history that tries to describe life for people who lived then, though I know there are not many written sources for this period.

Does anyone know of anything that might work (particularly in English)? It does not have to specifically be 850s Saxony, but I would like something that would give me an idea of the social structure and life of people in the German part of the Carolingian Empire during its decline.

If not, any advice other advice would be welcome.

Thanks!

In a realistic game whether the PCs are living in 1 or 2 they will believe they live in 2. However only Volsungs get to see dragons. For most people it is more like "Don't go into those woods".

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

In a realistic game whether the PCs are living in 1 or 2 they will believe they live in 2. However only Volsungs get to see dragons. For most people it is more like "Don't go into those woods".

That was part of why I picked this period, because I felt like it would not change the people's understanding of the world and the world was unpopulated enough to allow for monsters to actually be in the wild without suspending disbelief too much. :-)

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by phayman53

Would someone who has the 3rd edition Vikings please answer a few questions:

GURPS Vikings has two editions, both written for third-edition GURPS.

1) how much of Europe does the map of the Viking world cover? How detailed is it?

It has a full-page map of "The Vikiing World" that extends from Newfoundland in the West to Samarkand in the east, with major Viking settlements labeled and each Viking land's main trade goods. Sea and land routes are marked.

It has another full-page map of "The Western Voyages," which extends from Scandinavia in the east to Labrador in the west. Settlements are labeled, mostly in Greenland and Norway, and sea routes are marked.

The maps otherwise just show land masses and basic place names ("England," "Ireland," and so on).

2) does it talk about the Viking raids of northern Europe other than Normandy/Northern France and England in any detail (I feel like most sources focus on these almost exclusively)?

It doesn't go into a lot of detail on history. You get an overall picture, few specifics. It glosses over England and France just as much as anything else. You probably get slightly more of England than anything else. The timeline definitely focuses more on England and France, but it's not exclusive.

But the chapter starts by saying it's just an outline, and to look at the bibliography. Basically, the book isn't trying to be a primary source of history.

3) is there much detail about the societies other than the Vikings since my characters won't be Vikings but will probably have to fight them and interact with them some?

Quite a bit. There are five or six pages devoted to describing in summary form a bunch of "friends and foes": Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Gaels and Scots, Picts, Skraelings, Slavs, Arabs, Byzantines, Inuits, Mediterranean Christians, and Lapps and Finns. The more the Vikings interacted with the people in a way that's relevant to Viking adventures, the more detail you get. Anglo-Saxons, for instance, not only have a paragraph outlining who they were, but three more paragraphs detailing character types: warrior, townsman, and monk. Then there's two more pages in the Characters chapter on non-Viking PCs: no templates, but a paragraph for each character type: outcast, adventurer, kidnapped, visitor, missionary, friend.

But if your group isn't going to be mostly Vikings, you might be better off getting books about your intended character types. Anglo-Saxons are best detailed in GURPS Middle Ages I, and so on.

[khorboth]

Another possibility, and one I leaned heavily on in my historical campaign was Wikipedia.

I started with the approximate year or decade where I was planning to set the game and moved around from there. I found the contemporary monarchs to be good jumping off points as well. Clicking on things that I found interesting gave me a pretty good insight into the era (30 years war for me).

[Rasna]

For the military part, I suggest you:

"Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066" by Ian Heath
"The Age of Charlemagne" by David Nicolle
"The Conquest of Saxony AD 782-785" by David Nicolle
"Carolingian Cavalryman AD 768-967" by David Nicolle


About the 9th century Frankish and Saxon military equipment, we know for sure that the majority of soldiers were unarmored. The typical equipment for a 9th century Status 0 Frankish warrior consisted in:

- Spear ($40, 4 lbs) or Winged Spear ($40, 4 lbs; see Partisan, Low-Tech p. 60). Longer spears (GURPS Long Spear: $60, 5 lbs) were also in use.
- Light Medium Buckler ($45, 7 lbs) or Heavy Medium Buckler ($60, 14 lbs)
- The Sax, a blade of various length, usually without a hilt or with a hilt too narrow to effectively protect the hand, ranging in size from a Hiltless Large Knife ($30, 0.75 lbs) to a Hiltless Shortsword ($300, 1.75 lbs) but being more often a Hiltless Long Knife ($90, 1.25 lbs). See Removing a Hilt, Low-Tech Companion 2, p. 15.

Some warriors were archers. They used preferably yew self-bows up to 2 meter in length. Treat them as Regular Bow or Longbow, depending on size (or even better, treat them as Cole's "Deadly Spring" Yew Longbow and Yew Regular Bow). They used to carry a quiver with at least twelve arrows. Javelins were also employed, but apparently not very often.

Clothing consisted in Status 0 Ordinary Clothing woolen sleeved tunic (Locations: torso, arms || DR 0* || Don 23 || $72; 2.4 lbs), Status 0 Ordinary Clothing woolen trousers (Locations: groin, legs || DR 0* || Don 16 || $50.4; 1.68 lbs) and leather shoes (Locations: feet || DR 1 || Don 6 || $40; 2 lbs).


The weapons of Status 2+ warriors were the same with the adding of the Thrusting Broadsword ($600, 3 lbs). Status 2+ warriors wore also body armor. Warriors of lower classes were occasionally equipped with helmets and armours provided by their lords or by local monasteries.

Helmets can be:
1) A simple Pot Helm, common among Saxons (20% of torso armor || Locations: skull).
2) A Pot Helm with Cheek Guards (22% of torso armor || Locations: skull, cheeks [face 4-5 on 1d]), which can include a Mail Aventail (10% of torso armor || Locations: back of the face, ears [face 3 on 1d] and neck). Quite often, the aventail didn't protect the neck from the front (8% of torso armor).
3) The "Frankish Helmet", a Pot Helm with Nape Guard and Brim (27% of torso armor || Locations: skull, back of the face, eyes [face 6 on 1d; face 2-6 on 1d against threats from above]).

Helmets are of Spangenhelm construction and they are DR4 Plate to DR6 Plate plus padding, giving DR 5 to DR 7. Aventails can be made of Light Mail, Fine Mail, Heavy Mail or Light Scale.


Body armour consisted in almost all cases in a Mail Hauberk (likely to be made of Fine Mail or Heavy Mail) or, less often, a Scale Hauberk (likely to be made of Medium Scale). Padded Cloth worn under the hauberk is possible* (*as coeval Eastern Roman cataphracts did) but it isn't certain. There is little to no evidence about the use of textile or leather armor among Franks and Saxons, although Franks and Saxons in Roman service could have adopted textile elements of Eastern Roman armor like the pteruges. Mail Hauberk usually covered torso, shoulders and upper arms [arms 5-6 on 1d] and thighs [legs 5-6 on 1d], but it can extend the arm protection up to the wrists and the leg protection above the knees [legs 4-6 on 1d]. Apparently, mail gauntlets and iron greaves were known among the Franks; maybe they were worn by some of the wealthiest warriors, but this isn't sure.

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by Rasna

...

That is really great info, thank you!