[Discuss] BM Setting

[Lyman Stone]

> On Oct 3, 2006, at 7:47 AM, Lyman Stone wrote:
>> Venice and Florence and the swiss nations are post-BM, which, so  
>> far as I am aware, would be something like 1000-1300. Venice and  
>> Florence dont, as far as I am aware, start really gaining power  
>> until about 1350 or 1400.
>
> This is, and always has been, one of my big pet peeves: people who  
> try to pin down *exactly* where and when BattleMaster is supposed  
> to be "taking place."
>
> It's not.  It's not Europe.  It's not Earth--or at least, not *our*  
> Earth.  It's modeled after the culture of a broad time period from  
> (primarily) medieval Europe, but it's not meant to be that  
> specific.  There are monsters and undead attacking at random  
> everywhere, and flooding Beluaterra at irregular intervals.  We  
> have instantaneous transmission of messages, people who can't die,  
> and no widespread organized religion to speak of on most continents.
>
> Even if you can extrapolate a lot from the base, I don't think it's  
> something that can be made as specific as "up to 1300, but not 1350."

Well, the change from 1300 to 1350 and, more importaly, 1350-1450,  
and, HUGELY, 1450-1500, are big changes. Venice and Florence are  
typical of Renaissance cities... not medieval ones.

Whatever the time period, we surely arent dealing with the  
Renaissance, and the aristocratic republics of the great trading  
cities was more of a Renaissance developement, not a medieval one.

Plus, Tom said (if my memory is correct), in one of his comments  
about atheism, that atheism was more of an eastern concept, thus not  
appropriate in BM. Forgive me if I dont have time to find the exact  
quote. Plus, we have Kings/Dukes/whatever. Thats English. Not French,  
nto Japanese, not Hindi(sorry, I dont know what languages are spoken  
in India), not any African language, or Arabic, or Chinese of any  
variation. Which means (of course there is more variety, but, as a  
general guideline) we're dealing with, at least, a European feudal  
system.

Plus, the emphasis on the feudal system, and its strong power, is a  
medieval development, and begins to collapse, partly due to, and  
partly responsible for, the rise of the great trading cities where  
serfs can flee to and... lo and behold.... make money.

And I think we can all agree Greece and Rome are not in BM "cultural  
eras", they're farther away than nuclear weapons and tanks.

Naturally, BM cant be pinned to exactly one time period or culture,  
it is more diverse than specifically one time period. But, we are, I  
believe, supposed to function using medieval, european, guidelines.  
Which means we dont use words like citizen when referring to the  
peasents. The biggest difference I can see between BM and feudal  
Europe is gender roles. Gender has almost total equality in BM,  
though women get a number of special guilds they can join in FEI and  
Ata. ; ) Hey, now there's an idea, try and get a patriarchal realm  
going in some place.... can we ban based on gender? lol


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