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What pseudo-historical setting from the Classical or Ancient world would you want to see as an OSR game or setting book?

I'd love to see one that delved into the Finnish mythology, as in the collected works of it done in the 19th century as the Kalevala. It's as ripe for source material as the Norse, Greek, and Celtic lore. The legends of ancient India are also well under-used, IMO.

Sumerian-Babylonian-Akkadian. In a lot of ways, that was the original sword & sorcery setting.

And it would be nice if Arrows of Indra got any sort of support.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1054444What pseudo-historical setting from the Classical or Ancient world would you want to see as an OSR game or setting book?

There's really not enough South-American/ancient Mexican settings (granted some of the gods got in with deities&demigods). I'd love to have a party of jaguar-warriors stalking through demon-infested jungles, offering blood sacrifices to the gods...

Quote from: RPGPundit;1054444What pseudo-historical setting from the Classical or Ancient world would you want to see as an OSR game or setting book?

West Africa -- the Mali-Songhay era, in particular. Beninian coast would be a good aside too, the equiv of barbarian kingdoms of Forgotten Realms with Gao as Neverwinter and Timbuktu as Cormyr et al.

Stone Age would be my choice. Sticks, stones, bones and magic.

And I agree with Azraele, an OSR Ancient Mexico setting would be interesting.

Quote from: JeremyR;1054469And it would be nice if Arrows of Indra got any sort of support.

Agreed. I know they opened it to 3PP, but RPGPundit is the ideal author to expand the setting.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1054488Stone Age would be my choice. Sticks, stones, bones and magic.

You should check out Wolf Packs and Winter Snow.  Does what you're after, and with flair.

I'd only be interested in ancient world themed OSR setting that doesn't necessarily feel like it's explicitly based on a single specific ancient world civilisation.

Quote from: JeremyR;1054469Sumerian-Babylonian-Akkadian. In a lot of ways, that was the original sword & sorcery setting.

I've just stated working on one . . .

https://wulfwaldrpg.blogspot.com/2018/07/and-so-it-begins.html

https://wulfwaldrpg.blogspot.com/2018/08/seven-cities-classes-asipu.html

https://wulfwaldrpg.blogspot.com/2018/08/gods-of-seven-cities-design-notes-gods.html

A fantastical version of Rome right before it falls.  

Per the question, care more about the setting material than it be OSR in particular, but OSR rules are as good as anything else for my purposes.  Also, I'm not going to use it as it, but rather set a campaign after the fall, early dark ages.  The book then becomes a source book for what is left in the pockets of civilization as a starting point.  I'd handle how those change during the collapse.  Specifically, if the players want to try to rebuild what was, they can try in their neck of the woods.

I don't follow settings very closely.  This one may already be out there.

Late Bronze Age collapse. A handful of civilizations clustered around the eastern Mediterranean, with extensive diplomatic and trade relations, and a threat of Sea Peoples building up. Basically Cline's "1177 BC" but rpgfied.

Same as others, either Mesopotamia or Mesoamerica.

Quote from: TJS;1054496I'd only be interested in ancient world themed OSR setting that doesn't necessarily feel like it's explicitly based on a single specific ancient world civilisation.

I think that's my answer - I'd like a game where I could run every culture that appears in Hercules/Xena, from ancient Greece to Rome, Huns, Norse, China & Japan etc - but with say BC 300 to AD 300 tech, not medieval tech. It needs the full potential breadth of D&D, just classical not medieval.

Xena is definitely a good model (but use a fantasy world) - it needs to have classical Greece alongside late-Republic or early-Imperial Rome, plus proto-Vikings! :D

Egypt!

Quote from: Weru;1054500I've just stated working on one . . .

https://wulfwaldrpg.blogspot.com/2018/07/and-so-it-begins.html

https://wulfwaldrpg.blogspot.com/2018/08/seven-cities-classes-asipu.html

https://wulfwaldrpg.blogspot.com/2018/08/gods-of-seven-cities-design-notes-gods.html

Holy crap, man!  How did I miss this?

Quote from: Séadna;1054569Same as others, either Mesopotamia or Mesoamerica.

Yeah, these are the ones that I'd be most interested in as well.

Quote from: S'mon;1054585I think that's my answer - I'd like a game where I could run every culture that appears in Hercules/Xena, from ancient Greece to Rome, Huns, Norse, China & Japan etc - but with say BC 300 to AD 300 tech, not medieval tech. It needs the full potential breadth of D&D, just classical not medieval.

Xena is definitely a good model (but use a fantasy world) - it needs to have classical Greece alongside late-Republic or early-Imperial Rome, plus proto-Vikings! :D

I'd be more interested in roughly a single culture rather than Xena, but then I'm more attracted to more historical settings. There is a huge amount of variety just within Chinese culture or just within Meso-American culture.

The best Xena-like game, by the way, is Marcus Rowland's _Diana: Warrior Princess_.  :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana:_Warrior_Princess

Three Kingdoms China.  Full of potential but almost entirely ignored.  Qin is pretty, but not what I'm looking or.

Celtic Britain through to Sub-Roman Britain without Arthurian elements.  I already have King Arthur Pendragon, Keltia and Prince Valiant for that.

Pundit if your question is meant to see what next books you should work on. Go crazy imo. So many places and time periods you can choose from to publish a book.

Quote from: Dave R;1054494You should check out Wolf Packs and Winter Snow.  Does what you're after, and with flair.

THANK YOU!

Here's the PDF link for everyone. Great preview too.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/219259/WolfPacks--Winter-Snow--Revised-PDF?src=hottest_filtered

Here's the free character sheet
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/186705/Wolfpacks-and-Winter-Snow-Character-Sheet-editable-PDF?src=hottest_filtered

BTW, its the same author as the excellent GARDENS OF YNN
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/237544/The-Gardens-Of-Ynn?src=hottest_filtered

Antediluvian.

I'd be much more interested in an actual-historical OSR supplement, if it's well-researched and thought through, than some pseudo-historical pastiche. Nothing beats the real thing.

There's a few that I'd like to see, but the one for sure I'd buy is China. Celestial Empire is about the only other Historical China gaming book I can think of, but it's BRP rather than an OSR D&D approach.

I'd like to see a Native American-themed OSR game that for once is not focused on the Aztecs, Mayans, or Inca. While the Mesoamerican and South American natives did build great cities and civilizations, so did a lot of the North American tribes prior to European contact in the 1500's and 1600's.

You have the lost civilizations of the Mound Builders and the Anasazi people, and even in the era of colonization you have the great nations of the Iroquois Confederation in the Northeastern United States, the Powhatan Kingdom of the Mid-Atlantic Tidewater, the Sioux and Cheyenne braves of the Midwest, and the legendary Apache and Comanche warriors of the Southwestern deserts.

For that matter, while not technically "Ancient", I'd like to see an OSR game based on the Early Colonial Period of the Americas, stretching from 1492 to 1620. PC's could be either European explorers and settlers or Natives trying to defend their land and way of life.

All sorts of legendary events happened in this time, the voyages of Columbus and Cabot, the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro, the expeditions of Hudson, Verrazano, Cartier, and Coronado, the disappearance of Roanoke Island, the foundation of Jamestown and the landing at Plymouth Rock.

Hell, I'd love to see a Stone Age/Prehistoric OSR game about the Paleo-Indians for that matter as well.

Ancient Anatolia and the Black Sea region, around 250 B.C.E., during the reign of Antiochus II Theos of the Selueucids, just after the conclusion of his war with the Ptolemaic Egyptians. He was somewhat weak, and plagued by revolts.

Hellenistic Greeks, Celtic Galatians, Pontus, Parthians, Colchis, et cetera.

Sheba

Quote from: Spinachcat;1054488Stone Age would be my choice. Sticks, stones, bones and magic.

Something like 'Clans of the Cave Bear', with dinosaurs of course and shaman magic. :-)

Quote from: DocJones;1054855Something like 'Clans of the Cave Bear', with dinosaurs of course and shaman magic. :-)

1/7 of TORG has already done this.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1054719Ancient Anatolia and the Black Sea region, around 250 B.C.E., during the reign of Antiochus II Theos of the Selueucids, just after the conclusion of his war with the Ptolemaic Egyptians. He was somewhat weak, and plagued by revolts.

Hellenistic Greeks, Celtic Galatians, Pontus, Parthians, Colchis, et cetera.

Paul Elliott's Warlords of Alexander (http://romequest.fronteriza.es/Warlords.pdf) is set only a generation before this in 274BC.

Agricultural revolution.

I own OGL Ancients from Mongoose. So yes, I am the audience for this.

Quote from: JeremyR;1054469Sumerian-Babylonian-Akkadian. In a lot of ways, that was the original sword & sorcery setting.

And it would be nice if Arrows of Indra got any sort of support.

I'm playing in a Sumerian etc. campaign via Google Hangouts. Good GM and other players. I don't love the rules (MYFAROG) but it's not a big problem.

Ancient Russia would be interesting. I bought Mythic Russia for Heroquest even though I don't play Heroquest. I'd buy a well done OSR game in a similar setting.

There are enough similarities to Western European mythology to be familiar but enough differences to feel new.

Quote from: Kiero;1054888Paul Elliott's Warlords of Alexander (http://romequest.fronteriza.es/Warlords.pdf) is set only a generation before this in 274BC.

You know, that's the second time Warriors of Alexander has been pointed out to me. Some years ago I worked up an Anatolia ~250 B.C.E. campaign. After I'd done all the grunt work, somebody brought WoA to my attention. I downloaded it, skimmed it, wondered "how the hell did I miss this," and then forgot about it. (Had I run across it, earlier, I probably would've just used it and its time/setting, rather than doing my own thing set a decade or two later.) Thanks for the reminder! It seems well-researched.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1054991You know, that's the second time Warriors of Alexander has been pointed out to me. Some years ago I worked up an Anatolia ~250 B.C.E. campaign. After I'd done all the grunt work, somebody brought WoA to my attention. I downloaded it, skimmed it, wondered "how the hell did I miss this," and then forgot about it. (Had I run across it, earlier, I probably would've just used it and its time/setting, rather than doing my own thing set a decade or two later.) Thanks for the reminder! It seems well-researched.

BRP doesn't particularly appeal to me, but as a ready-made sourcebook it's really good. I say that as someone with a fair amount of lay knowledge of the period, I've been a developer on Europa Barbarorum II for several years and can lay hands on real historians.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1054505A fantastical version of Rome right before it falls.  

That's pretty close to what I've recently started working on: the province of Raetia during Commodus' reign, for Adventurer Conqueror King.

If you're interested, here's one of the most important blog entries via google-translate: Orcs and Etruscans (https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Ftassander.wordpress.com%2F2018%2F08%2F07%2Fvon-orks-und-etruskern-ordnung-chaos-und-humanoide-im-alten-rom%2F&edit-text=&act=url)

And another one, with two HEXMAPS! Everybody likes hexmaps, right? Hexmap des Bayerischen Waldes (https://tassander.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/spielleiter-hexmap-des-bayerischen-waldes-gabreta-silva-kampagne-acks-osr/)

There are quite a number of other blog entries about this campaign - everything's in German, though. However, Google Translate seems to work quite well, so it might be worth checking it out.

Also: Hi everybody!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1054444What pseudo-historical setting from the Classical or Ancient world would you want to see as an OSR game or setting book?

Iberia before it was conquered by the Romans. I don't really know much of anything about it, except one bit where it was said the people there traded ore with the Carthaginians, I think.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1055078Iberia before it was conquered by the Romans. I don't really know much of anything about it, except one bit where it was said the people there traded ore with the Carthaginians, I think.

That's a good one. It might be most interesting in the period when Carthage was establishing colonies on the peninsula and coming into conflict with the Greeks.

Also, the post-Roman period would be interesting, although that might be considered more medieval than ancient.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1055078Iberia before it was conquered by the Romans. I don't really know much of anything about it, except one bit where it was said the people there traded ore with the Carthaginians, I think.

Before or after the First Punic War? That changes the tenor of Carthaginian influence in Iberia, where the Barcid faction turns its attention to exploiting Spain, rather than looking to Africa and Sicily.

As a slight aside, Christian Cameron's Poseidon's Spear (third in a series, but perfectly good standalone) has a jaunt through 5th century BC Spain, France and Britain, looking for the source of tin. Some of it is anachronistic (Carthaginians present in far greater strength and more established then they were that early), but it's otherwise a great read. Ripe with RPG-able inspiration.

I know very little about the history of the area, other than a reference I vaguely remember to a "king." It might have been this: https://www.red2000.com/spain/primer/tartessos.html

Looking at the Wikipedia timeline, it might be interesting to play during first contact with the Phoenicians or when they start abandoning their colonies. I think any period where there is major change to the status quo that involves a well known ancient civilization would be potentially cool, so that's likely going to be Iron Age (going by that timeline).

I would really like seeing a very historically decent but fantasy-heavy setting based on China at the decadent end of the Shang Dynasty just before their overthrow at the hands of the Zhou.