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Here's a small representation of the main city of the Mississippian culture.There are too little pictures of the Mississippians, which is a shame.

I've always thought that pre-British India had a pretty cool civilization, but it's rarely explored by any media.

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Actually, thinking about it, does /tg/ really, really enjoys the middle ages, christian setting over the other ones?
Like, really enjoying it?

I know that /tg/ is a slower board but, no one is interesting in leaving a comment?

>>30439121
I'm reading up on the rich history of the Pacific North West. Rish history, awesome megafauna, cryptofauna, and little white men until much later in history.

>>30441184
I just know about the southern center, Hohokam, Anasazi and Mogollon. Care to share some bibliography?

I read a historical blog post a while back about Medieval African trade cities along the East coast, with riches and technology comparable to the Italian city-states... up and until the Colonial powers and the Arabs took over the sea trade in the Indian ocean.

>you know I really shouldn't be distinguishing between colonial powers and arabs because the arabs were at least in the beginning part of the colonial powers

>>30439121

What you're looking for is Tékumel, which is fucken awesome.

>>30440078
Hm yeah, if we have to classify cultural/historical basis on enjoyement (top is the most enjoyement):
>Medieval Christian Europe
>Roman/Greek
>Medieval Japanese
>Modern Age Europe (yes, all of that range)
>Ancinet Middle Eastern
>Celtic
>Ancient Chinese
>Nothern Native American
>Central American Indigenous
>Other far east/pacific islands' cultures of any age
>African
>South American Indigenous

>>30441424
>Tékumel is a fantasy world created by M. A. R. Barker over the course of several decades from around 1940.[1] With time, Barker also created the role-playing game Empire of the Petal Throne, set in the Tékumel fictional universe, and first published in 1975 by TSR, Inc. In this imaginary world, huge, tradition-bound empires with medieval levels of technology vie for control using magic, large standing armies, and ancient technological devices.

>Barker's legendarium, like that of the better-known J. R. R. Tolkien, considered not just the creation of a fantasy world but also an in-depth development of the societies and languages of the world. In other words, the setting also provided a context for Barker's constructed languages which were developed in parallel from the mid-to-late 1940s, long before the mass-market publication of his works in roleplaying game and book form.[1][2][3]

>The most significant language created by Barker for his setting is Tsolyáni, which resembles Urdu, Pushtu and Mayan. Tsolyáni has had grammatical guides, dictionaries, pronunciation recordings, and even a complete language course developed for it. In order for his imaginary languages to have this type of depth, Barker developed entire cultures, histories, dress fashions, architectural styles, weapons, armor, tactical styles, legal codes, demographics and more, inspired by Indian, Middle Eastern, Egyptian and Meso-American mythology in contrast to the majority of such fantasy settings, which draw primarily on European mythologies.

Also I can dig the whole scifi star empire collapse into a magical pocket dimension. Reminds me of Warhammer Fantasy in the old days when WHF and WH40k were still connected.

>>30440078
I don't care about the setting.

I only care about weapons. Give me plate armour and a warhammer in South-America, Africa, the fucking North Pole, Asia... I don't give a fuck man.

>>30441763
Could enough info be collected about say, the indiginous people of Australia to create a setting? The monsters there would be easy, since it's theoretically already a crazy dangerous place.

>>30441900
Don't forget that by the time the Aboriginals came to Africa, there might still have been 6 meter long giant komodo dragons in Australia.

>>30441800

Tékumel is kinda like Middle-Earth in that is was created by a guy who really knew what he was doing and put a lot of time and effort into it. If Middle-Earth was a sword and planet setting, that is.

>>30441900
It shouldn't be that hard

>>30439121
Something that non-European settings would have going for them is a good rational as to why they could exist for so long with magic and yet not have progressed. You just have to accept it in European settings, but it works in non-European settings.

>>30442008
>Something that non-European settings would have going for them is a good rational as to why they could exist for so long with magic and yet not have progressed. You just have to accept it in European settings, but it works in non-European settings.
I don't get what you tried to say, can you repeat it?

>>30442062
Europe has been conquered and raped between hell and back so many times by so many empires and kingdoms that it's only logical that it ended up on top.

After all, +-2000 years ago, Europe was technologically worse off than Africa 4000 years ago.

The fact that Europe is at the crossroad between Asia, Africa and the Americas is the reason why technology advanced so fast in Europe.

It's like having a meta-perspective on the world.

>>30442113
What does it have to do with magic and progress of non european civilizations?

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How about just erasing mankind from the equation?

When EVERYONE is an elf, or a dwarf, or an orc, or a lizardman, or a trikreen or an ogre, or a centaur or whatever the fuck you like, it really opens up a new way of world building. Because you can literally make up anything without giving a shit about it looking weird.

Nomadic Roman Centaur empires.
Plate-armoured nordic lizardmen. Anything is possible with imagination!

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>>30442216
I'm not sure if this is a joke or not, but I'm intrigued. tell me more.

>>30442062
Every now and then you see discussions along the lines questioning how unrealistic it is that a given fantasy setting (being European based) might have existed...with magic no less...and yet still be at a medieval setting. And it is a hard to swallow if you think about it.

But it works if you remove Europe and just have other cultures. The idea that they might be stagnant for thousands of years, even with magic, isn't that hard to believe.

Look at Asian cultures, both China and Japan basically closed their doors and said 'do not change' in their culture. If it hadn't been for Europe forcing them open they likely may have never changed. So it works on a cultural footing.

Of course, Africa is Africa and that is pretty good reason for them never progressing. But whatever.

>>30439121

I do like the idea of an aztec setting, there's some room for interesting potential campaigns in a pre-western influenced south American setting.

Some interesting aspects to explore could be:

The Aztec "War style" being focused on taking as many prisoners alive as possible, as opposed to trying to kill people, since their warrior society was based around capturing certain tribes men.

The other interesting aspect to this was that in Aztec society, once you had captured a member of a certain tribe, you got no more credit for capturing more of that tribe, you had to move on up and capture someone from a more respected tribe Or a tribe you hadn't captured from before.

Kind of like pokemon I guess.

There's also potential for some interesting politics between the Aztecs and the smaller tribes of the area, who loathed the Aztecs. Some of them survived purely by being very good at running away from and avoiding Aztec warriors.

>>30442296
>Look at Asian cultures, both China and Japan basically closed their doors and said 'do not change' in their culture. If it hadn't been for Europe forcing them open they likely may have never changed. So it works on a cultural footing.
That one was mainly because of the presence of Europe and them not wanting to associate with the west.

But to tell you the truth, I wouldn't call their cultures stagnant at all. I read little of them, so I'm not qualify to give a statement of them.

>>30439121
Spears of the Dawn.

It's based on literal magic negroes. Pretty great.

>>30442338
>certain tribes men.
They werent tribe men, at least not in the way you use them. The civilizations of mesoamerica lived in big cities, so I wouldn't think tribe men is a just way to call them.

>>30442162
Europe didn't become a master of the world because the white race is so superior.
Take a time machine, and 2000 years ago, you'll discover a continent full with drunk retarded barbarians with zero technological and zero scientific thoughts.

Europe became master of the world because there's only one continent situated at the "center" of the Earth.

And that's Europe.

Information had a hard time travelling from say America to Asia by itself. BUT it didn't have much problems if it travelled from America to Europe and THEN to Asia.

Europe's power was it's central location on this continental configuration in this sliver of geological time, and the fact that it had a linchpin position for passing on information.

Frankly, to decolonialize a setting, you can just move the continents around and place your Europe-proxy contintent in the center.

Or not have a continent in the center. Without a central place to share information, a planet would become filled with very dogmatic cultures.

>>30442429

I'm using it in space of any better terms. Although I was under the impression the majority of people or groups didn't live in cities? I thought that was mostly the Aztecs themselves?

I could be wrong of course, I'm far from an expert.

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>>30441184

Aw yeah.

>>30442526
Give that man a horse and you have a Pacific Crusader.

>>30442498
I think he means that cities don't need huge fucking stone buildings to be considered cities.

Just like how I live in a city with a total of 0 skyscrapers. But it's still a city.

>>30442498
There were hundreds of kingdoms and some empires in mesoamerica. Cities going from 20,000 to 500,000 inhabitants. They were very disciplined societies with the biggest cities having institutionalized education for kids. Of course, the majority of these schools only trained the for battle, basic religious practices and basic daily life stuff, while the noble schools tought philosophy, war tactics, arithemtic, politics, etc.

>>30442598

Mesoamerica was essentially the HRE with the Aztecs being the Hasburgs

>>30441966
Should have just said non-European.

>>30442598

I'm aware there were a large number of cities, but I took it as granted (perhaps incorrectly?) that despite the scale and development of these cities that the majority of people would not have been city dwellers, as was similarly the case in Europe at the time.

The institutionalized education is interesting though, I didn't know that.

>>30442498
Most of the Mesoamerican civilizations died out from a collapse in agriculture. The Spanish destroyed what remained.

>>30442666
Oh sure, even after these enormous urban centers, there were millions of of peasants. But the aztecs didn't attack them, they waged war against the bigger cities or against a region that produced something that would help them gain riches.

>>30442712
Not just agriculture.
Also massive environmental destruction. It took a FUCKING SHITTON OF TREES to make those cities and temples.

Goddamn hippies thinking the Aztecs and Mayas lived in harmony with the rainforest.

If the Aztecs and Mayas lived today, there wouldn't even be rainforests in Mesoamerica right now.

>>30442377
Anyone else think Africa is a cool setting?

Am I in the right thread?

>>30442712
False, they were and still are the people who work the land in Mexico and most of South America. Thought they've been receiving a lot of blows since the XIX century, when the ideas of progress and modernity tried to destroy their models of life.

>>30442712
>Most of the Mesoamerican civilizations died out from a collapse in agriculture.

Uh... some apparently died from a collaps in agriculture, but not the Aztecs or the Incas.

>>30442771
What the hell? what are you spouting?

>>30442791
Africa is a cool setting indeed.

http://io9.com/the-great-lost-cities-of-africa-1507656099
Here have some history to ignite your imagination.

>>30442771

nah

the MASSIVE ENVIRONMENT COLLAPSE is mostly revisionist histories adapted to fit current environmentalism ideologies (i.e. Jarred Diamonds collapse). They worked and used their environments the same way humanity did everywhere else but there was never some apocalypse of environemntal destruction

>>30442791
Don't know enough about it, but I'd love to learn.

>>30442791
I just want to know about the civilzations living in central and south arica before the europeans.

>>30442771
>Goddamn hippies thinking the Aztecs and Mayas lived in harmony with the rainforest.

The heck are you talking about? Every single tribe living in the Rainforest has either been displaced into it or has been shit-tier to begin with.

There might have been one culture along the Amazon river that wasn't completely shit-tier, but it was erazed by the plague.

>>30442854

Hey, fact is that the Euphrat-Tigris region had been repeatedly fucked over and turned into a salt flat by irrigation. And sometimes cities were left without access to water as the river broke the dyke and found itself a new bed some ten or more kilometers away.

>>30442942
But the Euphrat-Tigris region is not Mesoamerica. Maybe the Maya area had some environmental issues, maybe, but the center of Mexico didn't have them.

>>30442842
Most Mesoamerican cultures covered their building walls in some white gunk made from tree ashes. So they burned a LOT of trees.

>>30439121
Jesus this a tall-ass order for a buncha Westerners on the internet talking about a hobby that's pretty-close to white-exclusive. Not to mention it's 4chan, so racism ho!

Take all that together, and the real trouble is that none of us can really get out of the mindset of Westerners, because we are. But let's give it a shot.

First thing you might want to look at? Nomadic people. Abandon the idea of cities. Not that cities are a purely Western thing. But nomadic cultures are pretty common things that were common outside Europe a lot longer than they were common inside of it. One of the first stops might be simply eschewing a Western standard of living. Get people out of the village/town/city setting, and get them moving. Also consider the familial structure, because "strong man controls wife and sons, marry daughters to other strong men, share defense, make kingdom!" isn't the only way to get shit done.

I dunno. It's hard to do. And the fact that we probably lack much beyond wikipedia-educated folks on these topics makes it even harder.

>>30443006
Give me your source for that statement.

>>30443048
Just look up some history book on how the Mayas build all those buildings or something. A real history book.

Not that UFO-freak gravity beam/Christian retard nephilim/giant bullshit.

>>30442296
>Of course, Sub-Saharan Africa is Sub-Saharan Africa and that is pretty good reason for them never progressing. But whatever.

FTFY

>>30443102
Well, not completely true.

Wasn't there some African Christian king in Mali who pretty much funded the Renaissance or some shit?

>>30443097
Wait wait, you need to be more specific for that. You see I was going to be a mesoamericanist, it was my main interest when I started my universities studies. So I have a lot of books talking about the Mexica, Purepecha, Maya, some Mixtec codecs. So please man, I want to know what history books you're talking about.

>>30443137
You know people, some of these statements are very, very interesting and I would love to know more about it.

Would you kindly post the author or the book that said all those things you are saying?

>>30443173
>>30443197
Fuck do I know. I come here for /tg/. Not for /sci/.

Do thee own homeworke. Doth it looketh like my name is Secundus?

>>30443137
No. You're mixing up all kinds of things. Mansa Musa and Prester John, mostly.

>>30443240
Ah come on, /sci/ doesn't care about history.

>>30442857
>>30442866
This is where I first heard about Spears of the Dawn. The dude who talks about it is apparently a history professor and drools over how historically sound it is.
http://2gms1mic.com/2013/03/05/episode-one-bringing-the-awesome/

>>30443263
Well, 420chan has a /his/tory board.

If you like discussing history with stoners and hippies, that's the place for you. Those people actually give sources when they say shit. Unlike me.

>>30443137
Let's just say that such is quite unlikely.

As for Sub-Saharan Africa the mostly north-southwards orientation buggers up the spread of agriculture, which in turn delays everything else. IIRC there's a good amount of rainforests and other misery slowing down trade and the spread of ideas as well, which further slows down development. And the Sahara severely limits the influx of technology and ideas from Eurasia.

And then of course a lot of what progress was made was ground to dust under the colonial heel. European 17th century visitors to Benin City are to have described it as the equal of most European cities of the time.

>>30442457
Oh look more revisionist garbage.

>>30442457
You do realize the Earth doesn't have a center, right? It just looks like that on a map because those maps are based on European ones.

>>30443400
More Jared Diamond bullshit.

Protip: No one in academia believes anything he has to say.

>>30441302
Oh, sorry ma nigga, just going off of wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Pacific_Northwest_Coast

>>30443553
Protip: how does it feel to be a creationist cocksucker.

>>30443390
420chan is famous for it's weed but it's really about fat neckbeards arguing about wrestling storylines.

Kinda like how Georgia is famous for peaches but is really about poverty.

>>30443553
>Protip: No one in academia believes anything he has to say.

If you have any connections to academia, and didn't just pull that out of your ass, then you should understand quite well why I'll go with his views over yours when that's all you have to say about it.

>>30443521
You do realise that Europe is surrounded by three continents and has the easiest access to the Americas?

>>30443553
What the fuck do biologists have to do with history you fucking retarded cunt?

>>30442851
>At a time when European cities were getting wiped out by plagues and famines, Songo Mnara was thriving.
I really hate how admitting the feats of the non European cultures always seems to need boost from telling that Europe was shit. Especially when it is about Middle Ages.

>>30443708
Well, Europe was shit.

It wasn't until the late medieval period that Europe got out of the shit.

>>30443708
That is a weird thing. It's like rubbing salt in a wound or something. It's okay to say, "this culture was pretty cool" without shitting on another one. I guess it comes from people expecting an argument instantly.

>>30443834
That's why I hate documentaries about aztecs. They spend like 30 mins talking about their culture, and another 20 mins saying "oh yeah, europe got here".

Couldn't they use that space to talk about the politics of the region between the different groups and empires? or about their religion or society?

>>30443834
Don't be retarded. It's just something to help place historical things in context.

The medieval period was shit. You have disease, mass migrations, the Huns, the Mongols, the Vikings, you have wars among European groups, you have civil wars, it started off with a nice ice age... fun all around.

>>30443670
Being connected to Asia is a good thing here, yes. Especially with the fertile crescent next door. Africa doesn't really count, because the Sahara makes it a royal pain in the ass to get to most of it. he easiest way to make it to America is probably across the Bering Strait, it's where people first managed at least.

>>30443948
During the ice age. Because the mammoths "told" people how to use the Bering Strait.

No one used the Bering Strait after that, until scientists discovered that's how the Native Americans got there.

BTW, a while ago I watched a video about Aboriginal skeletons found in South-America. Something about how there were tribes of Aboriginals in South America, who were pressed away by the Native Americans until they only had land on the tip of South America and mixed with the new Native Americans.

>>30443948
>Being connected to Asia is a good thing here, yes.

Well, it's a double-edged sword.

Gunpowder was great. Huns and Mongols wasn't so great.

>>30444050
aboriginal as in, Australia?

>>30443137
I heard a theory that Mansa Musa may have provided funds indirectly for the Renaissance by causing massive inflation on the south side of the Med, but not on the north side, so Italian merchants could get lots more for their goods, which they then spent on art, statues, etcetera. Not sure if that's viable at all.

>>30444126
Well, sort of. Aboriginals today aren't known for their sailing skills, except for one tribe in I think the North-West.

However, back in the days, they sailed all over South-Asia, Australia, Oceania all the way to South-America.

>>30443819
>>30443928
And then we have these people who get their history from Hollywood movies. Academia has moved away from the horrible Middle Ages decades ago.

>>30444050
You know aboriginal just means native or indigene, right?

>>30444219
Use an actual argument instead of some argument ad hominem.

>>30444219
>look guise i read cracked.com too the medieval period wasn't that bad

Just because it wasn't as dark as was commonly though didn't mean it was a fun nice great period of history.

It still sucked ass.

>>30439121
There's actually a few Aztec settings out there.

One of them is called New Fire: Temikamatl Book of Dreams
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/114915/New-Fire-Temikamatl-Book-of-Dreams

There was a Kickstarter for it a while back. I haven't got my hands on a copy yet.

>>30444258
Aboriginal as in African stone age diaspora.

>>30443928
You don't need to place it in context. The hanging gardens of Babylon were cool regardless of what the ancient Greeks were doing. Roman society was interesting without delving into how steppe tribes behaved at the time.

>>30444358
Alright, now I need friends that like to play these games!

>>30444202
>However, back in the days, they sailed all over South-Asia, Australia, Oceania all the way to South-America.
Those were Austronesians (Malays, Philippinos, Polynesians, etc.), which are in the same racial groups as East and South East Asians and Amerindians. Australoids (Australian aboriginals, Papuans, Melanesians, some South Indians) never really got that far.

>>30444436
>history
>not placing it in context

Are you retarded? You are disregarding one of the most important aspects of history.

Because nothing in history happens in isolation. Everything is ALWAYS related and connected.

The Babylonians and Romans didn't live in pocket dimensions.

Does Byzantium count for deolonilist setting?

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>>30444503
Forgot my picture.

Niggas knew how to sail.

>>30444517
No.

>>30439121
Most cultures won't progress beyond tribal groupings without some sort of catalyst. Development requires both a goal and the means to achieve. If your people do not struggle, then they have no need to improve their station. This was the case of American cultures.

Secondly, I wouldn't call it "western culture". It originated in Mesopotamia, where the Greeks and Romans built on it, and in turn was further expanded upon by the Europeans. It's less "western culture" and more the very concept of civilization.

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>>30444599
Sup niggas. Don't mind me, just being the archetype for EVERY character that you played in your life.

>>30444599
Western culture is made of some reflections made by the ideas of Christianism that they still remain these days. Mainly the ideas of progress and that all christians are equal. I'm not saying those ideals are good or bad, but in the context we know them, they are western. So yes,we can talk about a western civilization and I won't be able to tell you more since I have to use less than two thousand characters in my argument.

>>30444558
Why not? It's not Europe or a western power.

>>30444599
The struggle is finding enough food to support your burgeoning population base because you've been so succesful as a hunter-gatherer or early-agriculturalist culture. Don't fucking call the First Nations stagnant when you can't tell a fucking Haida from a Miqmaq.

>>30444703
>implying I didn't state Mesopotamia was the birthplace of civilization

Nigga you blind?

>>30444759
>Does Byzantium count for deolonilist setting?
>No.
Hurr

>>30444558
What about Georgia? Also not Western or Europe.

>>30444782
He said a decolonilist setting is something that is neither western nor european. Byzantium was in Central Asia. It is neither Western, nor European.

>>30444759
It was started by Greek settlers, and later on it evolved in a full-blown colonial empire run by Arabs.

>>30444599

I don't think you understand Mesoamerican cultures, or are grouping them inaccurately together with North American cultures. It was bugfuck. They were constantly refining, improving, etc. and building up larger and larger empires held together mostly through psychological warfare. Yes, psych warfare. Against their own populace (or well, allied states). Kinda reminds you of home sweet home, doesn't it? If they had access to steel, they would not have "settled" for the control of central America.

You're right that other cultures hit a plateau, but that doesn't apply equally across the entire Americas. It was a big place.

>>30444810
whoops. I got a stroke there, for some reason I thought I was saying that it counts as a decolonialist setting.

It does count as one.

>>30444787
Colonized by the English, of course not.

>>30444859
You might want to take a look at your email adress.

I don't think it's a legit email adress.

>>30444827
Again, oh you silly Americans.

If you think the First Nations hit a plateau, you should pay attention to archaeology that happens outside of oily, boy-fucking toga-land.

White folk didn't depopulate the buffalo. The plains tribes did. Because they were so numerous, and so fucking good at it. And guess who they were in direct contact with? The sedentary, metal-working, long-sea-voyage-faring, kingdom-building Pacific Coastal tribes.

People think the indigenous peoples of North America as stagnant because they don't realize that North America is literally the last landmass our species migrated to. They started later.

>>30444545
Don't forget the South Americans who managed to sail to the Polynesians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_%281950_film%29
It's a good documentary, both of the shipbuilding ability of the ancient South Americans, and 1950's Norwegian scientists

>>30444316
It is not like anyone has presented any arguments for the badness of Europe in this thread. You could take a look at Lindberg or Maddison if you wanted to find out more about the progress in Europe during that period.

>>30444336
>It still sucked ass.
Because every period everywhere before 1950s probably sucked ass from our perspective. It does not make sense to say "Culture X is cool, also Europe was shit" because culture X was probably just as badly off.

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>>30444545
>Polynesians

mah nigga

I was working on a setting a while ago that was pseudo-Polynesian, with a particular emphasis on Hawaiian culture and mythology, though my setting went a little off the rails in some respects - for one, they had gunpowder (though no metal, so it was still a gun-less campaign). The ingredients are, after all, not that hard to get on pacific islands (volcanoes for sulfur, guano islands for saltpeter, etc).

I think my favorite little bit from Hawaiian mythology was the idea that there were a whole series of worlds before this one, all of them destroyed in turn, and that the octopus was the only creature to survive from the world that existed before the present Earth. Imagine a world in which the octopus was a pretty "normal" looking creature - and what they must think, to be the very last remnants of a totally alien world.

>>30444921
The populations in North America were also devastated by various diseases just before the Europeans started showing up in any numbers. In many cases it was Mad Max land that the explorers saw.

>>30444963
Fuck you're FUCKING RETARDED.

The article you're whining about compares the African trade cities to Italian city states.

If you compare the Italian city states to the West-European cities... oh man. West-Europe was just a giant pile of shit populated with total fucking retards.

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>>30444810
>Byzantium was in Central Asia

>>30445061
Yeah, I mean, Byzantium was totally in the Middle-east, not in Central-Asia!

>>30444982
>I was working on a setting a while ago that was pseudo-Polynesian, with a particular emphasis on Hawaiian culture and mythology, though my setting went a little off the rails in some respects - for one, they had gunpowder
Shit, I'm working on something like that. Though it was more SEA than Polynesia.

>Imagine a world in which the octopus was a pretty "normal" looking creature - and what they must think, to be the very last remnants of a totally alien world.
And that's more or less what the world I'm working on would be like. The humans are on a war against cephalopod like biological engineers.

>>30444921

All I'm saying is that of the many, many, many people in what is now the United States, Canada, and the various South American nations, you didn't always have shit improving in any meaningful sense. And the onset of cultural stasis is usually about when that tribe either gets absorbed into another tribe or outright wiped out. Because Europeans conquered most of them, a lot of cultures that were about to get wiped out (either by cultural domination or violent conquest) anyways.

You can argue about which ones they were if you want, since it's all fappery anyways.

What we're really arguing about is the damage a macahuitl does.

>>30445196
>macahuitl
post pictures

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>>30445228

Uh, sure?

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>>30445228

Pretty neat recreation here.

>>30440078
Are those guys wearing fursuits?

Regardless, yes, I actually do like European settings. I especially enjoy pre-Christian Celtic or Nordic settings, SPQR settings, and sometimes medieval settings.

That said, when I worldbuild, I try to mix it up. Currently doing something like Vinlander viking/natives living in a collapsed Romanesque empire on an island chain.

>>30445355
Were they painted or not?

The style is obviously wrong, but who gives a fuck? The artist probably has to eat a shitload of illegal chemicals before he or she has the skills to recreate Aztec artstyles.

>>30445399
Fun facts, IIRC Spanish soldiers like to switch out their European gambesons with those American war-pyamas.

Why? I forgot. Besides, that's what they invented google for. It's single purpose is to act as my secondary brain.

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>>30445228

This is what the business end looks like in a "perfect" version, this is probably recreated in some design software which is why it's so geometric. Real macuahuitls (what's the Nahuatl plural, I wonder?) were slightly more irregular but no less sharp.

>>30445405
pictures in codex show them painted. But to be honest, I'm sure only the ones used by the elite warriors were.

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>>30445399
>>30445459

They are basically padded armor, yeah. Helmets were reinforced, but it was all designed more for style and intimidation than protection. They didn't have the material resources to make good armour, so they made the best they could out of padding, wood, etc. Whatever they got. At that point, you might as well go for style and terror more than anything else.

This is someone's So Animu drawing of a cuauhocelotl. If this guy's weapon looks like a chainsword, that's not too far off - they're best on the "schnitt" or "abschneiden" to use a Liechtenauer term. You swing them onto someone and move it back to saw through them.

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>>30445405

The design is correct (it was done by an archaeologist) but the painting is obviously a recent style, not traditional Nahuatl, yeah.

I haven't found any sources which suggest that they were ornamented that much. It would make sense to doll them up a bit because making them takes a lot of time and skill, and so each is very much a work of art even before you put embellishments on. And the warriors weren't known for being modest.

>>30445580


As a note, you don't get one if you are a schlub warrior in the first place. They're more the sort of thing you get for being promoted at all. "Now you're a REAL warrior."

>>30442735

The Aztecs had a system of somewhat similar to Federalism that involve regular tributes of the subservient "states" that now days could pass as taxes.

>>30446308
That's normal in the political system known as empires, bro.

>>30444765
>Somebody knows who the Haida are
oh gosh, oh gosh, man it's surprising how awesome it feels to have your people get mentioned now and then

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I wish I had more pics of other civilizations.Osprey is god tier with these illustrations though nothing special for the information

Would you like if I posted all the pics I have from mesoamerica?

>>30444982
>>30439121
>>30445096

You should check out Red Tide. Basically a post-apocalyptic fantasy in which a Chinese civilization has colonized an Indonesia-inspired island chain full of native inhabitants. Also peoples inspired by the Arabs, the Vikings and black Aztecs with Scottish names are all sailing around this area since the rest of the world got destroyed.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/89888/Red-Tide-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Sandbox-Toolkit

I'm currently doing my own twists on the setting, which is full of stuff you could export to another game. I want to inject more science fiction, time travel and stuff from my interest in the anthropology of Pacific cultures.

Fun Fact: Did you know "mana" is derived from the Polynesian name for the powerful magical force great chiefs possess?

>>30443648
>>30443693
Look at this retarded samefaggot that has never heard of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

>>30447818
low tier history book. People act like it discovered THE nail in the coffin. I'm just messing around, though it baffles me that this book got so popular

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Maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm african american but sub saharan africa in pre colonial times was breddy cool. It's a shame that it's such a niche subject.

>>30448048
Dude, do some worldbuilding. Research your heritage and make it yours. Real African history may be niche, but your version doesn't have to be.

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>>30448137
You raise a valid point, and I've actually been worldbuilding and crafting a mythology. The cultures aren't going to be one for one correspondences, but they give a general idea of the cultural regions of pre colonial africa.

>The Sahelian empires
>Guinea rainforest city states
>A cross between ethiopia and christian nubia
>A blend of willful free cushitic peoples
>The great lakes kingdoms
>Swahililand
>East african highlanders
>Kongo kingdom
>Luba/Lunda savanna states
>Nilotic cow herding warriors
>Mutapa/Zimbabwe
>Nguni/Sotho Tswana clansmen
>The savage cannibal peoples of the central african rainforest and its northern fringe
>Khoisan hunter gatherers
>And of course, pygmies

Shit this thread could have been awesome. Instead we have a bunch of fucking hostile racists shit posting.

Remember the #1 rule of /tg/: BE EXCELLENT TO ONE ANOTHER.

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>>30448302
Got some good books to read?

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>>30448424

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>>30448370
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33887119/ENCYCLOPEDIA-OF-AFRICAN-HISTORY-AND-CULTURE-VOLUME-I-ANCIENT-AFRICA-PREHISTORY-TO-500-CE

http://www.scribd.com/doc/37304017/Encyclopedia-of-African-History-and-Culture-Volume-II-African-Kingdoms-500-to-1500

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33887612/ENCYCLOPEDIA-OF-AFRICAN-HISTORY-AND-CULTURE-VOLUME-III-FROM-CONQUEST-TO-COLONIZATION-1500-TO-1850

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184265eo.pdf#xml=http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?database=&set=4DC2A097_1_13&hits_rec=9&hits_lng=eng

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184282eo.pdf#xml=http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?database=&set=4DC2A097_1_13&hits_rec=6&hits_lng=eng

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184287eo.pdf#xml=http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?database=&set=4DC2A097_1_13&hits_rec=8&hits_lng=eng

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001215/121577eo.pdf#xml=http://www.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?database=&set=4DC2A097_1_13&hits_rec=2&hits_lng=eng

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184295eo.pdf

Also, "A treasury of african folklore" is a brilliant source of african myths, legends, and folktales.

This is good too

http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/mlb/

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>>30448547
Oh man thank you. i would share you some books but.
1.- I don't know if you're interested in mesomerica
2.- All of my books are printed and in spanish or nahuatl.

Sorry

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>>30448593
I love history. I reccomend this book called "1491". It's FUCKING incredible. It showcases from north to south what the pre-columbian americans had going on. From the Inuit in the north of Canada to the Yaghan in the south of Chile. What do you recommend?

>>30448707
If you want to know about the Mexica, you must read fray Bernardino del Sahagún, a missionary who interviewed a lot of mexica about the old ways, only decades after the fall of the empire. It really is the most complete work you can find at the time about institutions, religion, calendars, priests, war, history, etc.

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>>30448777
I read that the Mexica priests would have owned the Catholic priests in theological debate and intentionally lost to save their own lives. And that poetry was considered to have the same essence as blood in terms of spiritual power.Studying pre colonial americas, oceania, and africa has given me a gratefulness to missionaries for recording this stuff.

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>>30442866
Ever heard of the Kongo kingdom? It was a great kingdom spread over what is now congo, DRC, and Angola. They even converted to christianity eventually. Their capital city of Mbanza Kongo was on a cliff overlooking the congo river. It was described as a giant labyrinth with courtyards and gardens, pallisides, palaces, churches, and markets. It had a population of over 100,000 people at it's height. On the outskirts of the city alone lived 30,000 people. Portuguese sources say Kongo could call up 70,000 troops for war. Less important central african states were the Luba kingdom and the Lunda empire based on the Luba kingdom which dominated the centra grasslands.

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>>30449400
The kings personal enclosure was 1 and 1/2 miles.

>>30439121
Most people would just say non-western settings.

>>30449842
Hush. He hasn't learned to not be PC.

>>30450075
what fucking politics have you ever heard of that enforces use of the word 'decolonialist' you goddamn partisan piece of shit
the retard of an OP read up on other retards who were thinking about these campaign settings and decided to make an incidental, retarded choice of wording which he copied in lieu of the capacity for independent thought
and you come in calling out "PC" like the other members of this fucking circlejerk which happens so fucking often in threads like this
i hope you're happy, you fucking mongoloid, i hope you feel independent and assertive and unified with your comrades on account of standing up to the PC brigade and all of its goons, because maybe if you get some fucking pride you won't shitpost so flagrantly

>>30450157
I'm just saying, is it so hard to say "Non-European"?

>>30450211
I also wanted to add pre-roman cultures and eastern Europe, I feel the terms I use encapsulate what I meant better than just non-european.

>>30450274
You mean Greco-Roman cultures then?

>>30450416
Not quite, since some islamic groups from northern africa all the way to Syria, have a lot of roman and greek influences both in their architecture and ideas on the world.

It may not think like it, but I did put some thought into the term I used.

>>30450487
Hmm...intredasting. I can see the beauty in that. For a long time Norse, Celtic, Slavic, and Finnish cultures and mythologies were looked down upon compared to greece and rome. Tolkien said fuck that.

>>30450487
>It may not think like it
Jesus I'm tired, I meant "It may not look like it"

>>30450521
Also you cannot forget the greek area that would later become the Byzantine empire, both with roman and greek inflences, but still something very different to what I said before.

>>30450274
You're a goddamn moron then to use highly politicized terms like colonialist to describe something much less contentious.

>>30450994
Decolonialism is not a higly politicized term, at least not yet.

You should probably calm down and stop attacking me with these kinds of insults.

>>30443906
>Couldn't they use that space to talk about the politics of the region between the different groups and empires? or about their religion or society?

>On a show that'S going to be sold to white people who just want to drink beer and told that they're awesome

Riiiight.

>>30447161
>>30445096
>>30444982
Sheeit, I've worked on something like that too! More Indian Ocean trade route if anything though, mostly SEA.
It's been on-and-off, updated sparsely.
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Setting:Golden_Archipelago

I do need some more ideas though; What would you like to see in a fantasy-south east asian archipelago? With a bit of aztec flavor and a smattering of viking?

>>30450157
butthurt pc person detected

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>>30439336

Looks like what you'd get if the egyptians had be responsible for the norman architecture rather than the vikings.

>>30441763

>modern age europe
>not contemporary europe

have fun with your "everything you do is gonna be undone by ww1" setting I guess.

>>30441900

They're not monsters if they really exist.

So you gotta add "Dire" infront of everything (though Dire Cassowary would just be feathered T-Rexes)

Also:
>Emu Wars Period as the australian equivalent of the sengoku period of japan

>>30451407
Well ok, when ou put it like that...

>>30442216
Greg Stolze made a fantasy setting without humans as far as I remember.

>>30440078
How many games are set in actual honest to god christian middle age setting, though. Ars Magica is and it's pretty neat. Most fantasy games are set in a vague DnD knock-off sanitized and robbed of most things that actually make medieval Europe interesting. I came to hate lazy DMs who set all their games in "generic fantasy". Maybe I'm just jaded.

>>30444703

>Don't mind me, just being the archetype for EVERY character that you played in your life.

I have recently played a fat, effeminate mage with a small pony and a toad in Dungeons & Dragons and a insane, perverted maester with a retard servant in the Song of Ice and Fire RPG. I don't think those guys had anything to do with Girugamesh.

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I hereby seal this thread with my approval.

It shall be saved for posterity and the enjoyment of future /tg/ generations.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=the+archivist

>>30455088
>>30455106
Your approval means shit, namefag!

Bump

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>>30455145
I agree.

Yours matters more. Your vote ensures the thread remains archived.

>>30455439
Voting is worthless, one person can use proxies to vote something good down until it is gone. They can also vote something terrible up until it can't be removed through legit votes.

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>>30455497
I have not had this experience, yet.

I am of the, perhaps admittedly misguided and naive, impression that the threads I select are met with a certain approval by TG itself.

I will cease to name fag here.

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>>30455497

>voting is worthless

Butthurt Republican Detected.

I think the word you're looking for is "non-Western".

Aztecs and Mayans were plenty colonialist.

>>30439336
LAST CHANT OF THE SUN MAN

He was a god to his people. He lived high above the earth, in the realm of his brother the Sun, and his rule stretched from the world of life to the world of spirits. His word was absolute. Even the gods respected his desires.

So why did the dogs disturb his dreams? It seemed unfair that he could not order them to stop their howling.

The unearthly crying of dogs awakened the Sun Man before dawn. Leaving the slave Willow Girl asleep on the pallet beneath her buffalo robes, he dressed himself in the dark—a cape of bright bird feathers, a headdress of white swan feathers that ringed his head like the battlements of a tower, an apron of pierced whelk shells brought two thousand miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico—and then he picked up his boots and made his way out of the long house and into the still, cool predawn air.

"How may I serve the Divine Sun, my husband?" said a voice.

The Sun Man was startled, then annoyed. His wife, the Great Priestess, had a habit of turning up when she was neither wanted nor expected. Now she lay before him, stretched full on the ground in a prostration of respect. He wondered how long she had been there.

The Sun Man dropped his boots before her. "You may lace up my boots, if it suits you," he said.

The Great Priestess rose to her knees. She held out one of his boots, and he stepped into it. Her tattooed face pursed with disapproval as she worked the hide laces.

"That lazy Willow Girl hasn't done the job?" she said. "She doesn't know enough to protect the feet of the Divine Sun against the dew?"
"She was asleep," the Sun Man said.

Her voice grew more severe at this weak excuse. "It is not her business to sleep when the Divine Sun is awake."

"I will speak to her."

"It is a whip of braided deerhide that will do the speak¬ing," the Great Priestess said. "I will see to it myself."

>>30456311
The Sun Man restrained another sigh. His wife was the absolute ruler of the household, and he had no business dis¬rupting her domestic arrangements. If she wanted to whip a slave, she could do so. He could only hope that she would do the whipping herself, frail and old as she was, and not order a burly male servant to do the job.

He would have to try to think of a way to make it up to Willow Girl later.

The problem, he reflected, was his wife's common birth. If she had been born into the privileged and sophisticated Sun Clan, the divine rulers of the People, she would have had a greater tolerance for his flings with the slave girls. She would have known that his liaisons meant nothing, that he was merely exercising one of the perquisites of his birth.

But the Sun Clan was very small, and the noble clans weren't very large, either, so both were required to marry outside of their caste, which meant marriages with common¬ers. The Sun Man's wife had brought her commoner's views into his household, and expected her husband to remain faithful to her bed as if he were merely a farmer or a stinking fisherman. Such behavior was proper to one of the lowborn, perhaps, but certainly not for an all-powerful autocrat whose rule had been ordained in heaven. The Great Priestess did not understand that his slave girls were not a threat to her own position, but were just a way of keeping his bed warm at night. They were an itch that he scratched, nothing more.

The Great Priestess finished tying the laces of his boot. She held out the other, and the Sun Man stepped into it.

"The funeral of your divine brother, the Fierce Badger, was very expensive," she said, her voice deliberately casual.

Here, he thought, was the real reason why he found her waiting here in the doorway.

"True," he said.

"And Eyes of Spring, your sister and the mother of your heir, is growing frail."

"Also true."

>>30456339
He had given it thought —these facts were obvious enough— but it was clear that he had not given it as much thought as the Great Priestess.

"The war chief is new to his post," she continued, "and we have a whole class of young warriors that require seasoning."

"Relations with the barbarians are good," the Sun Man said. "There hasn't been any trouble between us in years. I do not want my old age to be troubled by wars, and a war would disrupt our trade northward for copper and pipe clay."

"It is sad that Eyes of Spring is so weak," the Great Priestess reminded. "There will be great mourning soon, and disruptions one way or another."

She tied the bootlace with a little snap of finality, then turned her head to direct her stony face to the horizon. She had made her point, and now her husband was dismissed to go about his business.

Out in the town below, the dogs yowled.

"I will speak to my brother the Sun on this matter," the Sun Man said, and walked across the level, grassy field atop the mound until he gazed over the edge at his sleeping kingdom below.

The Sun Mound on which the Sun Man lived covered ten acres, its base larger than that of the pyramid of the Egyptian king Khafre. Across the plaza was another mound equally as large, the Temple Mound where the Sun Man worshipped his divine brother, the Sun. Each mound had been built over the last hundred years by the painstaking labor of thousands. The great mounds had been raised one basketful of earth at a time, each basketful dug by hand and carried to its destination by a dutiful citizen.

>>30456371
Twelve thousand people lived below the two great earthen mounds, half within the ditch and wooden stockade that surrounded its center. The City of the Sun was one of the great cities of the world, its population larger than that of barbaric Saxon London over four thousand miles to the northeast. Many more thousands of the Sun Man's subjects lived in large towns linked to the city by road and river, and thousands more in small villages or isolated farms. If the Sun Man ordered the new war chief, his nephew Horned Owl, to make war on the barbarians of the northwest prairies, he could bring over three thousand warriors into the field, more if the Sun Man called in the allies. It was the largest armed force on the North American continent, and assured the Sun People's domination of their world.

And the Sun People in turn were dominated by the Sun Man, the divine ruler who held the power of life or death over every single one of them, who spoke daily to his broth¬er, the Sun, the great burning sphere that ruled the heavens and commanded all things on earth.

The Sun Man regulated everything within his empire. The time of planting, the time of harvest. He kept track of the calendar, scheduled all ceremonies, festivals, and initiations; ordered entire populations to report for duty to build mounds, repair the stockade, or maintain roads. He collected taxes in the form of corn, and traded it for precious objects or distributed it in times of famine. Though other chiefs acted as magistrates, the Sun Man was the court of final appeal—he gave justice, imposed fines, and ordered exile, punishment, or death. Although the war chief led the soldiers into battle, it was the Sun Man who declared the war and made the peace that followed.

His word was not only the law, it was the divine law. To defy him was no mere rebellion, it was blasphemy.

If only, he thought, he could command the dogs to be silent. What was bothering them?

>>30456379
The Sun Man began to descend the earthen ramp that led from his Dwelling Mound to the plaza below. Pain shot through his knees and back at the impact of each step. Walking downhill was always painful for him. His shoulders ached so dreadfully that he could barely raise his arms above shoulder height. He had lost half his teeth, and the rest were worn to nubs by grit in the stone-ground maize that made up most of his diet.

The Sun Man was very, very old.

He was forty-one years of age.

At the bottom of the grass ramp the Sun Man met his two chief attendants, his pipe-bearer He Who Leaps Ahead, and his new mace-bearer, Calls the Deer. Both had been about to chant their way up the Sun Mound in order to formally awaken him —approaching the Sun Man required a degree of ceremony— but the dogs had done their job for them. They prostrated themselves before the Sun Man, faces into the turf, outstretched arms offering the pipe and mace for his use. The carved and ornamented pipe and the simple, heavy stone mace symbolized the Sun Man's spiritual and temporal powers, the first able to summon spirits to the earth, the second capable of splitting a man's skull.

"Stand," the Sun Man said.

Calls the Deer, at twenty-five in the prime of life, sprang easily upright, then had to help He Who Leaps Ahead to his feet. The old pipe-bearer's name, the Sun Man thought, no longer reflected the man who stood before him, but instead the swift youth of memory, first in races and first in war, who had joined the Sun Man's official family back when they both, and in memory the world itself, were young. Now Leaps Ahead was ancient, crook-backed and white-haired, the tattoos on his face blurred with age, as if smudged by tears.

>>30456398
The Sun Man cast an admiring glance at Calls the Deer. The young man was a fine example of the noble caste: he was strong, a fine hunter, and his splendid memory gave him perfect recollection of the large number of chants and other religious ceremonies that were a part of his duties. He was deferent to his elders, but knew also how to maintain the dignity of his own high position.

A pity he will die soon, the Sun Man thought. For he knew that he, himself, would not last much longer. And when he died, much of his world would die with him.

"He who dwells in the sky
He who gives warmth and light to the world
This is the one we come to praise
This is the one whose greatness we come to exalt"

The Sun Man and his attendants wove left and right as they ascended the Temple Mound. It was not proper to face the god directly when approaching him.

"Let all the world sing his praises
Let the god rise into the sky
Let him bring his blessings to the People."

Through long practice, the words came easily to the Sun Man's lips. But his mind was occupied by thoughts of life and death.

Barring pains in his joints and in his teeth, the Sun Man remained healthy. He was still able to chant loudly at the ceremonies, participate in some of the slower dances, and pleasure himself with Willow Girl. His mind was clear. But at his age it only took a little thing to bring him down, a chest cold that wouldn't leave, a winter chill, a careless fall.

And when he passed from the world, Calls the Deer would die with him. As would He Who Leaps Ahead, and many others.

>>30456428
For the divine Sun Brother could not go unaccompanied to the spirit world. His two chief attendants would be stran¬gled at the funeral by bowstrings, and so would his wife the Great Priestess, and Willow Girl, and all the slave girls who had borne him children. Members of the Sun Clan —includ¬ing his sister Eyes of Spring, if she outlived him— would volunteer to be strangled, and so would prominent members of the noble and commoner castes. The cavernous long house atop the Sun Mound would be burned, the mound raised above its ashes, and a new long house constructed for the Sun Man's nephew, who would reign after him.

A new conical burial mound would be raised above the Sun Man, and at least thirty young girls would be laid to rest with him there, and an equal number of young warriors, all to serve the Sun Man in the afterworld. To provide these ghostly servants, any young person would do, including slaves. But if there was not a sufficient supply of slaves, then the People of the Sun would have to volunteer, or be persuaded to volunteer.

That was why the Great Priestess had chosen to speak of war this morning. The funeral of the Sun Man's younger brother, the war chief Fierce Badger, had reduced the number of suitable slaves, and his older sister, Eyes of Spring, was in frail health. If she died soon, a few dozen girls and warriors would be called upon to accompany her. If the supply of attractive, youthful slaves actually ran out, the Sun People themselves might be called upon to die before their time.

When this happened —and if there was an insufficient number of volunteers to make up the difference— there was sometimes an unseemly discord within the Sun People as the community's leaders chose those most suitable for strangulation, always the fittest warriors and the most beautiful and pleasing young women, people whose lives the selfish commoners sometimes wanted to preserve.

>>30456464
In the past there had been loud protests and even violence, disharmony that could mar the funerals of the great. It was always good for the community's health if there were a supply of slaves on hand for sacrifice.

That was why the Great Priestess wanted war now, why she wanted the Sun Man to send the new war chief and three thousand warriors marching northeast onto the prairies.

She wanted to make certain that her husband's funeral, which would also be her own, would be suitably grand, and that the mound would be raised above them without disharmony among the People.

There was sense behind this plan, the Sun Man conceded.

But wars, also, lacked harmony. And the Sun Man, perhaps selfishly, did not want strife to mar his last years.

He would speak to his Brother Sun, he thought. And if the Sun was in favor of war, then the Sun Man would order his mace-bearer to carry the declaration of war to the war chief.

"We obey the words of the Sun
We follow him in all his ways
We chant his praises to all the world
It is our Brother Sun we exalt above all others
"

The chant had carried them to the top of the mound. Before them was the big temple with its steeply pitched roof of prairie grasses. Fragrant pine smoke rose to scent the air. The three prostrated themselves before it once again, and then rose to approach the temple.

"We walk in the ways of the Sun Brother
He will bring us the corn and the deer
He commands the wind and the rain
Our hearts are filled with his essence
"

Chanting voices answered from the temple where the night attendants waited. It was their duty to feed the eternal flame, to make sure that this little bit of the sun that glowed atop the altar was never extinguished. Horrid penalties waited for those who neglected this duty and permitted the fire to die, but these hideous tortures had never been inflicted in the Sun Man's lifetime.

>>30456488
The night attendants piled more pine boughs atop the altar. Flames crackled higher. The Sun Man stepped to salute the altar, arms raised high, blazing heat burning on his face and palms. Then he turned to face the East, where the first pearl light of dawn was spreading over the dark horizon.

“He who dwells in the sky
He who gives warmth and light to the world
This is the one we come to praise
This is the one whose greatness we come to exalt”

They chanted until the Sun Brother was high above the horizon, until Grandfather River to the east had turned first to gold, then to silver, and the fields and homes of the Sun People shone bright in the cloudless morning.

The Sun Man brought the chant to an end, and there was a moment of silence in which the Sun Man felt harmony radiating over the world like the beams of the sun. And then the dogs began to whine again, and the mood was spoiled.

"What is wrong with the dogs?" said Leaps Ahead. "Is there some kind of sickness among them?"

"Perhaps there is a cougar upwind," said Calls the Deer.

The Sun Man raised his face to the sky. He felt no wind on either cheek. The air was utterly still.

And still the dogs howled.

"If the Divine Sun wishes," Calls the Deer said, "I will order men out to look for a cougar."

"Yes," the Sun Man said. "That would be best. But come back after giving the order — I may have another errand for you." He might have to send the mace-bearer to the war chief with a declaration of war. He turned to He Who Leaps Ahead. "You may go to breakfast, old friend. I won't need you till my afternoon audience."

"As the Divine Sun wishes," Leaps Ahead said.

After the two chief attendants prostrated themselves before the Sun Man and then made their way down the mound, the Sun Man dismissed his other attendants as well. He wanted to be alone to consult the Sun concerning this weighty matter of war.

>>30456520
Beneath the sky's canopy of divine blue, the Sun Man could see the waking city spread out before him. Below the two giant mounds were lesser earthworks, peaked burial mounds and the ridged mounds where the nobles dwelt. Below these lived the commoners in mud-and-wicker buildings with peaked grass roofs. Round granaries were set on stilts to keep animals from plundering them. Smoke rose from breakfast fires, staining the air. Children played ball games in the plaza, women knelt in the open before their homes and ground corn for breakfast, craftsmen sat in the open working with flint or basketry. Fertile cornfields, the source of the Sun People's wealth, stretched out flat almost to the horizon, the young corn turning the red-brown soil to a sea of green.

To the west was the creek that supplied the town with its water. To the east was Grandfather River, the huge brown expanse, over a mile wide, that wound its serpentine way to the Gulf of Mexico far to the south. The City of the Sun was set a respectful distance from the Grandfather River, which usually overflowed its banks twice a year, and in fact sometimes flooded the city itself, forcing its population onto the mounds for protection.

Grandfather River was hidden along almost all its length by the tangle of cottonwood and cypress that lined its banks, but the Sun People had long ago cut all the nearby timber for building and for firewood, and now fields traveled down almost to the water's edge. Crops were planted there following the spring flood. On the water's edge were stacks of wood, lumber rafts that had been floated down Grandfather River and then broken up to provide the city's firewood.

The land, the crops, and the firewood were all owned by women, and descent and ownership traced through the female line — this was why the Sun Man's successor would not be a child of his body, but rather the eldest son of his eldest sister.

>>30456544
The Sun Man could not but approve of this arrangement — freed from the distractions of property, economics, and agriculture, the men were able to concentrate on more important matters, like hunting, diplomacy, religion, and war.

War. It would be his decision, taken in consultation with his brother, the Sun. No mortal being had the right to interfere. What he planned to do now was to enter the temple alone, feed the temple's eternal fire with willow bark and tobacco to summon the god, and then explain the problem to his brother. Only then could harmony be achieved and the correct decision made.

But harmony was going to be difficult to achieve, even in the Sun Man's mind. The wailing dogs unsettled his thoughts. Their cries reached a kind of crescendo now, an eerie chorus that sent a shiver of fear up the Sun Man's back. What is going on? he wondered. What is happening? And then the Earth flung him off its back. He landed on the turf with a cry, the wind going out of him. His swan-feather headdress fell from his head and rolled away. The mound throbbed beneath his belly, as if a giant was kicking the mound again and again. There was a crackling, snapping sound, and the Sun Man looked over his shoulder to see the great Sun Temple tumble and fall, the cypress posts that supported its roof snapped off clean.

My brother's home! he thought in anguish. The Earth, he thought, had committed a blasphemy against the Sun.

A sulfurous stench assailed his nostrils. The air was filled with a horrid growling noise, like a beast snarling through teeth it had planted in the throat of its prey. The Sun Man clawed at the turf and tried to rise, but the Earth threw him down again. He managed to get to his hands and knees and crawl to the edge of the mound.

A terrible incomprehension filled his mind. The scene before him was so unaccountably strange that he could not wrap his understanding around it.

>>30456571
The ground was heaving up in waves, rolling from east to west like a storm swell on a huge lake. Houses and people were being flung from the green wavetops like driftwood. The grass roofs waved in the weird, turbulent surf, or tumbled down as the lightly built houses collapsed. Great cracks split the earth, and here or there an entire house was swallowed, tumbled into dark chasms. Faint against the sound of the terrible growling, the Sun Man could hear screams and cries for help.

Everywhere, it seemed, the Earth was attacking the Sun People. Huge jets of water shot out of the land, dozens of them, taller than trees, their towering heads crowned with vapor. These fountains flung white sand into the air as well as water, and some had already built tall pale cones around their roots. Some of the water jets even spat big stones from the ground, black rocks large enough to crush houses.

Across the plaza, the Sun Man watched as the Sun Mound, his own home and that of his ancestors, came to pieces. An entire corner of the mound suddenly fell away, slumping onto the flat ground below as if it were nothing more than liquid mud instead of dry soil stabilized by turf. Tons of soil spilled like a wave onto the town below, sweeping away a half-dozen houses. Horror struck the Sun Man as he saw little human figures struggling in the moving flood of soil.

Above, atop the mound itself, the Sun Man's house had fallen as one corner of the foundation spilled down the mound into the town below. The grasses of the crumpled roof thrashed, and the Sun Man hoped that this was caused by survivors trying to dig their way out rather than by the motion of the earth.

The scent of smoke touched his nostrils. He turned, scuttling on hands and knees like an insect, and looked in horror as a tower of flame blazed up above the roof of the Sun Temple. It had fallen onto the roaring altar fire, just stoked with pine logs, and sacred flame had set the roof alight.

>>30456582

No! the Sun Man thought. There were sacred objects inside — ancient pottery and flint, a black stone that had fallen from the sky, figures of gods and animals, and these could not be sacrificed to the flame. The Sun Man tried to rise again, was once more flung to his knees. So he crawled, the Earth's terrible growling in his ears, toward the temple to rescue the holy things.

It was useless. The dry grass roof caught in an instant, and the old cypress log timbers and wickerwork walls were well seasoned. By the time the Sun Man could crawl more than a few paces, the entire structure was ablaze. Heat beat on the Sun Man's face. It was so intense that he had to turn and crawl back the way he had come. The strings holding together his whelk-shell apron had broken, and he trailed carved shells behind him as he crawled.

Still the Earth shook, still her horrid roar rumbled in his ears and in the very marrow of his bones.

It was beyond him. There was nothing he could do in this war of the Earth against the children of the Sun, nothing except finally to remember his chief role, that of intermediary between the people and the divine forces that controlled their world.

He crawled again to the edge of the mound, threw himself flat, and began to pray.

"Brother Sun, rescue us!" he cried. "Earth Woman, please do not punish your children! Cease the war between you!" And then he lost all sense and could only babble.

"My wife!" he said. "My children! Save them! Don't let them die! Save my babies!"

At his words, to his own great astonishment, the rumbling ceased. The Earth's violence faded, but the Sun Man could still feel smaller tremors shivering through the ground beneath him.

>>30456604
The Earth had ceased her attacks, and all at his divine command. He blinked in awe at his own power as he looked at the scene below. Thousands of buildings in his city had fallen, almost every one. Many, fallen onto breakfast fires, were now alight, columns of gray smoke rising in the still air. Most of the long wooden stockade that protected the central part of town had fallen. The fountains of water continued to gush from the ground, each now rising from a cone of white sand that had built up around its base. Some of the fountains were luckily placed so as to put out fires, but most just added to the confusion and terror of the people and animals below.

His poor people, he thought. Most that he could see were prone and helpless as himself. A few were on their feet, but they staggered helplessly, as if possessed by a fit. Howling dogs spun in circles or barked and snapped at everyone nearby. Hundreds of children were wailing. Many adults were screaming as well, injured or trapped in fallen houses.

The sky was very strange. A few minutes ago it had been blue and cloudless, but now low clouds were forming, black and threatening. He could see the clouds growing, expanding in the air like a black stain.

"Thank you, Earth Woman!" he said. "Thank you for sparing us!" He peered across the plaza —now torn in half by a rent twenty feet across— and tried to distinguish the few people he could see wandering around the Sun Mound. Had the Great Priestess survived? Eyes of Spring, his sister? His many children? Willow Girl?

The Sun Man tried to stand, but a horrid vertigo seized him, and he fell again. Why was the world so dark? he wondered.

"Praise to the Earth!" he continued automatically. "Praise to Brother Sun!"

>>30456628
He cast a look to the east, to where Brother Sun was rising above the riverbank, and he stared.

Grandfather River, he realized dumbly, was gone. Gone. Gone completely. Between the fields on the west side of the river, and the great thicket of oak and cottonwood on the far side —now mostly fallen, he saw— there was nothing but the muddy brown bed of the river, and here and there a long silver pond, all that was left behind when the river left its bed.

Grandfather River fled, the Sun Man realized. Horrified by the war between Sun and Earth, the river had turned its face from the world.

A moving cloud crossed the empty riverbed and poured itself across the Sun Man's vision, as if the river had inverted itself into the sky and was now in flood. Passenger pigeons, tens of thousands of them, risen in alarm from the wrecked forests on the far bank, headed west in search of a safe place to land.

"Praise to the Earth!" the Sun Man continued to chant, and turned again to the wrecked city below. He should try to stand again, he thought, and show himself to the people. Demonstrate to them that their divine ruler was unharmed, and ready to face the fearful emergency.

And then an actinic flash lit the dark sky, turning the world into light and shadow, and to the Sun Man's utter horror he saw the lightning strike his ruined house on the Sun Mound. The grass roof exploded, flinging burning thatch in all directions. At once the entire structure was alight. "My children," he moaned.

He had only a few seconds to absorb this dreadful sight before another firebolt lanced down, striking the burning temple behind him. The Sun Man clapped hands to his ears at the shattering sound, and cowered as flaming debris fell around him.

The Divine Sun, his brother, was fighting back, flinging his lightning bolts at the Earth. But his own people were caught in the middle.

"Spare us!" the Sun Man whimpered. "Turn your dreadful lightning away!"

>>30456657
His answer was another flash, another boom. He looked across the plaza to see people spilling down the slopes of the Sun Mound, fleeing from the dreadful thunder. "Don't run!" the Sun Man commanded. "Rescue my family!"

But they could not hear him. Another bolt smashed into a field not far away. The cloud of passenger pigeons overhead dispersed, each bird frantic to escape the blasts. Screams and wails were rising from the city.

"Save us," the Sun Man moaned. "Spare us your anger. Save my family."

But the shattering bolts continued to fall, one after another. The Sun Man felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and tried to burrow into the turf of the Temple Mound, clutching the soil with his fingers. The lightning bolt crashed to earth mere yards away. The Sun Man's head rang with the sound. The flash blazed through his closed eyelids. He could smell his own hair burning. Deafened, stunned by the blast and by the catastrophe that overwhelmed him, the Sun Man lay on the scorched grass, unable even to beg the gods for aid. He could hear the shiver and boom of lightning around him, but he kept his face pressed to the mound, cringing from the sound of each blast.

In time the blasts grew less. The Sun Man blinked, opened his eyes. The world was still dark, and low clouds still threatened overhead. Gray smoke rose into the heavens from dozens of fires. Tens of thousands of frantic birds circled madly in the air.

"My family," the Sun Man whimpered. He propped himself up on an elbow and gazed across the wrecked plaza to the Sun Mound.

The long house was still in flames. Nothing living could be seen on the mound, though a few sprawled, motionless figures testified to the deadly nature of the lightning blasts that had rained on the high platform.

The city below was half-concealed by smoke from burning lodges. Only a few stunned human forms moved in the murk. If they were wailing or calling for help, the Sun Man's deafened ears could not hear them.

>>30456681
The tall fountains of water had subsided, though their white sand cones still cov¬ered the drenched corn fields.

The war between Sun and Earth seemed to have reached a truce.

The Sun Man rose to his knees. "Praise to the Sun Brother," he murmured, and held out his hands, palm upward, in a prayer position. "Save your people." His head whirled.

He looked around, and his mouth dropped open.

Grandfather River was coming back! But he was not returning to the old riverbed; he was pouring across the fields to the south, heading straight for the City of the Sun. He was running backward, south to north! And he was angry, foamy white teeth snarling as he rolled steadily toward the city, a wall of brown, churning water ten feet high.

Terror snatched the Sun Man and pulled him to his feet. His head spun. Madly he pointed and shouted at the stunned people below.

"Flood coming!" he cried. "Run to the mounds! Run now!"

A few people stopped and stared. "Run now!" the Sun Man screamed. "Run to the mounds! Grandfather River is flooding!"

The people seemed to be conferring. Only a few began to move toward the earthen mounds.

"Run! Run! Grandfather River is flooding!"

The river's foaming front poured into the southern reaches of the city, sweeping broken houses before it. The river was full of wreckage, entire uprooted trees standing in the flood like fangs. A few people looked south in alarm, but they were on the flat ground, lines of sight broken by mounds and wreckage and smoke, and they could see nothing.

"Run! Run!"

And then the river burst through the broken stockade, rolling the shattered logs of the wall before it like a row of pinecones. The people below stiffened in horror, and then, too late, began to run.

>>30456701

The Sun Man's words dried up on his tongue as the river ran through his city, sweeping away the shattered lodges, carrying the straw roofs and wicker walls along on the white-toothed tide. He saw dozens of people madly trying to swim, others clinging to wreckage and crying for help. Only a few dozen managed to stagger up the Temple Mound's earthen ramp, or climb its steep sides. Others scrambled up conical burial mounds, or clustered on the flat-topped mounds the nobles used for their lodges.

The Sun Man collapsed, wailing. Earth Woman had made war on him, and his divine brother the Sun had abandoned his people.

He would die, he thought. He would refuse food and water, and he would perish along with his nation. He sat down on the Temple Mound, crossed his legs, and began to sing a song of death.

His people, cowed by the world's inexplicable fury, did not dare to approach him.

Within a few hours the river's level had dropped, and the survivors gazed down to a mass of wreckage that littered a steaming swamp.

Other than the rubbish that floated in the still water, and the mounds with their clusters of stunned, homeless refugees, nothing remained of the greatest city that had ever been raised on the continent of North America.


>>http://www.amazon.com/The-Rift-Walter-Jon-Williams/dp/0061052949

>>30444050
>Not knowing that the true Native Americans got the North America by fucking boats crossing the Atlantic from Europe.
>Not knowing that they got wiped out by the East Asian tribes.
>>30444545
>Also fucking Polynesians man.

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>>30456791
>learning history from mormons

Not even once.

>>30456884
>Not knowing of the Solutreans you fucking faggot.
>Not knowing that they have actual proof of the Solutreans on the East coast.
>Implying I'm calling the Solutreans a lost tribe of Israel.

>>30457031
Help me out here, Wiki
>In 2014, the autosomal DNA of a 12,500+-year-old infant from Montana was sequenced.[4] The DNA was taken from a skeleton referred to as Anzick-1, found in close association with several Clovis artifacts. Comparisons showed strong affinities with DNA from Siberian sites, and virtually ruled out any close affinity with European sources (the so-called "Solutrean hypothesis"). The DNA also showed strong affinities with all existing Native American populations, which indicated that all of them derive from an ancient population that lived in or near Siberia, the Upper Palaeolithic Mal'ta population.[5]

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native american citiy

>>30457097
Hmm. What a shame, however they do have DNA similarities between the Anatolians, however until they find more evidence to support the European Solutrean theory I will not use that.
Damn shame.

>/pol/ race wars on /tg/

Fuck this gay earth

>>30461094
/pol/ isn't even in here race warring.

At least, not yet you jew.

>>30441800
My first time GMing was in Tekumel.

Fond, fond memories that I never want to repeat again, ever.

>>30442216
You're boring the crap out of me anon.

>>30455638
>Aztecs and Mayans were plenty colonialist.
>ignoring all his discussion of why he prefers to use decolonialist
lol

>>30457611
What city is that? It looks like the Mississippi one.

>>30461334
It was before and then some asshole saying "fuck year europe" but he probably has school

>>30443553
I think >>30443400 was actually talking about this really interesting BBC Radio broadcast about a plaque from Benin. The entire thing is super interesting. and you're a dick
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/rmAT6B7zTZCGACd7i7l6Wg

>>30454887
He made REIGN who also had a lot of interesting non-Europeans civilisations