First, I understand that this is
largely a copy/paste job, some sections have minor edits, some have
been completely rewritten, others have just had demographic data
added; but I did make the effort to put all of the Human ethnic
groups and their appearances on Garnia world into chronological order
and add that demographic data, plus the minor edits, so, here you go.
The Egyptians (now extinct) migrated
circa 2500 BC - Their culture would have been here for 1504 years,
more than enough time to build their entire civilization up around
their new Nile in Alt-Africa. Then the Goblins Zerg rushed them and
ate them over the course of a few generations, adopting their culture
and religion, but in an evil, Goblin kind of a way. Along with the
Goblins in Egypt, at campaign present a tributary kingdom subject to
Nova Roma, there are significant populations of Rakasta and Flind.
For what it's worth, they would have been here for 125 generations
and had a starting population of 5,000.
The Kushites migrated circa 1000 BC and
were presumably placed by the Sidhe, for whatever reason right next
to their real life Earth neighbors the Egyptians. I am going to make
a judgment call here and say that in the 1004 years (which is 50
generations) they've been here they started out as allies of the
Egyptians and when the Goblins killed off Egyptian culture they fled
away from that losing war, and have fought a long guerrilla war
against any Goblinoid incursions into their territory ever since.
Their starting population will be 5,000.
Vedic era Indians - I am bringing them
in circa 750 BC Earth time and they live at the southern end of the
Tirnakaur peninsula, I am thinking one small, forgotten city that was
destroyed by disaster, I think a great flood, 5,000 people. This
makes them Hindu with all of the Vedas and they speak Sanskrit and
work iron. Time compression means they've been here for 920 years or
46 generations at campaign present. That's longer than the Celts, but
they start in a crappier area, those mountains are infested with
Goblinoids and worse, then there's a vast expanse of forest to cross
to get to the really good lands.
Pagan Arabs - They could really be from
anytime before Muhammad, but I am going to try and keep a more
ancient focus here and say they are from the semi-Mythical kingdom of
Sheba; which is mentioned several times in the Bible and was probably
in modern Yemen. They were traders and controlled the Red Sea trade
route so coastal shipping is not beyond them, they were conquered by
their Arab neighbors to the north in the 2nd century BC and their
capital city was destroyed. They made a comeback eventually, but I am
grabbing them from their powerful classical period, when they
straddled the Red Sea as a kingdom. So, 300 BC, random natural
disaster, say sandstorm of enormous proportions destroys major Sheban
settlement of say 8,000 people. They end up on the same end of the
Tirnakaur peninsula as the Vedic Indians, who welcome them as they
are being hard pressed by an invasion of Goblins, Ogres, Giants and
Trolls when they arrive with their slightly superior technology.
They've been here for 770 years or 38 generations, also longer than
the Celts. Their culture and language became slightly dominant over
the Vedic Indians, but they mostly are pretty cool with each other.
The Celts come in next, starting in 60
BC, at 687 years ago, or 34 generations, within 2 1/2 Garnian years
their population goes from the initial 120,000 religious pilgrims, to
280,000 people, the extra 160,000 Celts being refugees from Caesar's
conquest of Gaul. A further 100,000 refugees from the Roman conquest
of Britain arrive over the course of the next 30-50 Garnian years.
Circa 428 AD a mass migration of Irish pagan Celts arrives, St.
Patrick, on Earth declares victory for having "Driven the snakes
from Ireland"; 25,000 Irish Druids, Bards, Warriors and Farmers
arrive. That's about 10% of the total estimated Irish population at
the time of St. Patrick, but you know how stubborn the Irish can be
about religion. Next migration will be from Scotland as Picts resist
Christianization at the same rate, they are the last Druids on Earth.
Assume at about 600 AD 3,500 Picts arrive, as there just aren't that
many of them. Further Celtic migrations will continue to happen, but
they will continue to get smaller and smaller as the magical power of
Earth fades. The Celts will give birth to five major nations in this
world, and are the largest Human ethnic group.
Next we get a substantial population of
Romans from the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius, we may get a few more,
here and there, and there may have been a few before, but this is
like direct divine intervention by the Sidhe since they know the
Celts and Romans are traditional enemies by now and the Celts are
becoming a nuisance. They get the summer population of 1/2 of
Campania for their start 644 years ago the Romans estimated 16,000
citizen deaths, so take that for what it's worth. How many
non-citizens and slaves died there too? 2 for every Roman? Did they
only count men as citizens? Modern archaeologists have no way of
estimating the total death toll, it's certainly in the thousands, is
it more than 20,000? 30,000? 50,000? Pliny the Elder died there and
he was one of the greatest minds of his time. The Romans get to move
into an area that is pretty much exactly like the one they left
behind too, so they are going to get some serious advantages. Let's
call the total sarting group 35,000 and they've been here for 644
years, or 22 generations. They also have the Gorilla Sapiens living
in their empire, and they have readily chosen to adapt to Roman
culture, as have significant numbers of Dwarves.
Then the Chinese, who have only been
here for since 250 AD earth time or 587.3 years Garnia time,
equaling about 29 generations, building the Empire of Ming Liang. I
demonstrated with math before, at the early stages of the blog how I
made my assumptions of population growth for the Celts, the Ming
Liang are in an area that is actually pretty well suited to them, I
am willing to give them a greater rate of growth than the Celts
because their traditional way of life is in no way compromised, they
just moved, as though they were moving to new village lands- the
first generation might have a tough time building stuff from scratch,
but after they're cultivating rice and silk and all the other
traditional Chinese things they would have brought with them, it will
be easy to expand. Assume 50,000 original settlers, and an 80% growth
rate/generation until they fill all the good coastal and river lands,
then slow them down to about 65% until all of their country is at
peak capacity.
Additionally, this area also is the
homeland of the Halflings, should they continue to exist, and they
are a race that is by nature Good aligned, so they would probably
help the new settlers. Although that's going to work out kind of like
the Native American Indians helping the European settlers. Halflings
may live longer but they don't breed as fast, mature as fast, or have
the capacity to become as powerful as Humans, the Halflings are going
to become a subject people of the Ming Liang, but not really in a bad
way.
Next up are the Saxons. They showed up
in Wodanslund about 450 AD or 520.6 Garnian years ago, which is about
26 generations; and have divided their time between building
fortresses, sweeping Humanoids from the plains (and ultimately making
expeditions into the mountains surrounding their vast plain),
becoming horse riding cattle lords, and hiring themselves out as
mercenaries, primarily to their neighbors to the north- Frodia. Most
of Frodia's professional soldiers are Wodanslunder mercenaries,
leading many outlanders to believe that Wodanslund is a subject
kingdom to Frodia, but this is not the case. The Wodanslunder Saxons
will have a starting poulation of 1,500.
Next up are the Norsemen, who have been
here, off map, since 862 AD for about 383.3 years, or roughly 19
generations, since they live on an island chain that is unlikely to
affect the main campaign area and are too far off map to make the
voyage to the nearest part of the map, they are, in essence, a
separate campaign. They are also only starting with about 2000
people.
San - Apparently these guys, also
known as Bushmen, have been in South Africa for something like 15,000
years. I am going to grab some from about the time the Zulus start to
rise up and kick all of their asses into the Kalihari desert, these
guys are serious stone age hunter-gatherers. They store water in
Ostrich Egg shells and eat caterpillers and grasshoppers, along with
anything else they can forage up. I am doing them the "favor"
of moving them to the desert west of Wodanslund, otherwise they'd
easily end up as a slave caste to the Muslim Arabs too. Now the Zulus
really start to rise under Shaka, pre-Shaka they were just another
clan of Bantu speakers in southern Africa, they mostly got kicked
around by the other Bantu speakers and lived in crappy land that they
forced some of the San out of. Shaka comes to power in 1816, Zulu
ancestors had been in the neighborhood since about 1000 AD. So I am
bring my San over in 1000 AD, they don't live in villages, just
mobile bands, so this group of mobile bands, say 2000 people, just
walk directly to Garnia World, how? Who knows, ancient San magic?
Sidhe felt bad for them? Anyway, they have been here for 337.3 years,
or roughly 17 generations.
I guess the next people on the list are
the Chagatai/Golden Horde coming from circa 1300-03, when a severe
drought caused untold devastation and starvation to both hordes, they
were at peace with each other and everyone else for this brief
period, so we'll save some people and animals and move them over to
Garnia World then, it's the perfect time, neither horde is
religiously zealous yet. The Khan of the Golden Horde is a
theoretical Muslim, but he gets married to the daughter of the
Byzantine Emperor, an Orthodox Christian and Muslims of his court
referred to him as an Idol worshiper (either Buddhist or Tengerist),
despite his favoritism towards Islam. So, if they came in 1302 AD,
they've been here for about 236.6 Garnian years, or about 12
generations; I am going to start them off with a conservative 15,000
people roughly 1/2 Turkic and 1/2 Mongol, plus their yurts and herds;
but they're in an odd position of actually being near remnant cities
of the Sidhe Empire who have learned how to play the ancient game of
"let's keep the Humans divided", so they are really broken
down into many warring clans of either Turkic or Mongol speaking
peoples with shifting alliances and a fading memory of the golden
days of Genghis Khan.
Muslim Arabs - These guys can come from
anytime after Muhammad, but I want them to be not right after his
revelation or lifetime. I want them to have Damascus steel and
Scimitars, so I have to wait until both of those are invented. I
looked it up and it's later than I thought when I talked to Darryl
about it earlier. Damascus Steel isn't a problem, it dates to the 3rd
century BC, but Arabs didn't START using Scimitars until after the
Mongol invasion and conquest of Baghdad. Call it a century or so
later for them to be in common usage and we're looking at the
mid-14th century. I am cool with that, we have some fairly late
arrivals yet to come, and it explains their superior sailing
technology. So in 1350 AD, a hardy group of Arabs end up over here,
that's 220 years, or 11 generations, since they arrived and formed
their "Maritime Emirates/Pirate Isles" and began wondering
which direction was Mecca I guess. Give them an initial population of
5000 people or so.
Then we get the Japanese from the end
of the Nanboku-Chō war 1399 AD earth time. That gives them 204.3
years here, or 10 generations, during which time they've colonized an
island chain, established a Shogunate and greatly improved their
seafaring skills, ironically based on Chinese designs. They have
recently established trade with the Ming Liang, but have a vast edge
in seafaring technology and many other skills that the Japanese
originally got from the Chinese. Assume a starting population of
15,000 retainers and loyal peasants.
Next are the Greeks from Trebizond, who
are beating feet to out run the Ottoman empire when they find
themselves on a weird foreign shore. They made their voyage in 1404
AD Earth time, so they've been here for 202.6 years, which is roughly
10 generations. They're a civilized and advanced medieval/renaissance
people so I think they'll do OK. The only people close to them are
the Norsemen, with whom they have made trading contact. The Greeks
got the better island, it's almost a mini-continent all off by
itself. They get a starting population of, say, 5,000.
The Aztecs - they entered the valley of
Mexico fairly late, they were relative newcomers when Cortez came and
kicked their asses. They showed up and started kicking ass around the
1300's AD, so we need to grab some before they all get infected with
various White Man diseases by the Spaniards, before 1519. Let's pick
a spot in the middle and say they were supposed to be wiped out by a
volcanic eruption, but the Unseelie Court really loved their
heart-ripping-out mass Human sacrificial style, a small Aztec city
of, say, 12,000 people are transported to their new home, buildings
and all, right near the coast so there's fishing too. They formed the
Empire of Xochitli (which means "Flowers" in Nahuatl, the
Aztec language). They've been here since 1425 AD, so that's 195
Garnian years, or about 10 generations.
The Roma - commonly known as Gypsies,
they don't even come into existence until the middle ages, so we have
to wait for that anyway. I am bring them in from 15th century France,
they've got all the traits associated with Gypsies at this point
(fortune telling, bright wagons & metal working) and they'll be
happy to get away from the increasing prejudice. So 1450 AD, meaning
they've been here for 187.3 years, or about 9 generations. We'll
bring 1500 or so of them.
Iroquois - Their confederacy wasn't
even formed until sometime after 1450 AD, possibly as late as 1600,
although the proto-Iroquois peoples were living in the Finger Lakes
region as early as 1000 AD. I am acting under the assumption that we
want real Iroquois and not their ancestral group, so I will pick a
spot in the mid-range 1525, meaning they've been here for 162 years,
or 8 generations. I will be nice though and move them into the
forests of Tirnakaur instead of the Swamp that the Muslim Arabs live
in; otherwise I think a stone age people are going to be slaves, even
as bad-ass a stone age people as the Iroquois. The Celts in Tirnakaur
have too much else to worry about to try too hard to make this new
band of Humans their property. Which tribe of Iroquois do we want to
bring? Should I just roll a D6? Or a D10 and divide by 2 because
technically the Tuscarora weren't part of the league until 1722. We
can't have them all. I rolled Mohawk, which is the result I think
most people would have wanted anyway. Their relative low population
density means I can't see them losing more than about a 1000 people
without it being really noteworthy, and that's pushing it.
I probably should have mentioned that the Chinese were brought here by an actual Dragon, protecting the bloodline of the first emperor of China and his loyal followers, a pact made between them centuries previously. Powerful Dragon magic.
ReplyDeleteOh, and did everyone like the pictures? I just grabbed what I could find easy that looked cool for each cultural group, so some didn't get a picture, but I thought it made the post more colorful.
ReplyDelete