What if, when Julius Caesar first sailed across the Channel to carry out his first abortive foray into Kent, he had discovered that refugees and returnees from the Trojan War (Achaeans and Trojans alike) had got there first? And what if those larger-than-life heroes of Homeric myth had mingled with the figures of Celtic legend, the Fomorians, the Tuatha De Dannan, Math ap Mathonwy, the black dog and all the rest?
Fast forward a hundred or so years, and there would be a walled Roman settlement there on the Thanet coast. It would be a place to trade for tin, slaves, and other commodities, and also for magic and druidic mystery and wisdom. Inland, there would be hill forts and towns, some ruled by native Celts, others ruled by Achaean and Trojan demigods, living in an uneasy and chaotic network of alliances, rivalries, conflicts and betrayals. In the forests would be fey beings of Celtic myth, "fair folk", dragons and giants. And the glory-obsessed Achaean and Trojan sons would be forever straying into the fairy realm to try to win eternal fame for themselves.
That would be a good place to run a campaign of D&D.
Why would one need to go to the Roman settlement on Thanet to trade for druidic wisdom? Perhaps advanced technology?
ReplyDeleteSJB
I'm thinking it's more that the druids would go there, or send emissaries, to trade their wisdom for commodities or Roman technology.
DeleteGot it. I hope you are going to do this as a setting book. New Troy a huge tell in Miltin Keynes. It immediately made me think Corum meets Hawkmoon. As one of the commenters on your literary posts noted Moorcock poured out more inspiration during a hashished weekend in the 1960s than the rest of fantasy literature (with the honourable exception of Holdstock) has managed since 1977. The Empire of Granbretan would make good Romans: charming, efficient and evil. Although I love Roman settings, I fear that Cthulhu Invictus and Weird Wars get it horribly wrong in thinking a tentacle-face is the problem of evil. This quote from Caesar surely encapsulates what practical evil looks like: ‘Caesar sent our soldiers inside, and sold everything in the town in one lot. The buyers reported to him a sale numbering 53,000 people.’
DeleteSJB
In an abortive game 15 years ago we had Britania as a Phonician/Carthaginian outpost who worshipped Dagon/Nodens/Lludd. It was a weird mix of Cthulhu, Fleetwood Mac, and Whiskey...
ReplyDeleteWould you be willing to throw a little Shakespeare into the mix? Lear and Cymbeline are set in this time.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. I will be very liberal with my approach to Celtic myth.
DeleteI recall there being some good Romano-British synthesis of myth - Minerva Sulis at Bath [Aquae Sulis] being an example. That seems a good element to play with
DeleteIt sounds delightful. Greece and England are the two best real world places for d&d inspiration.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean, 'what if...?' - isn't this what your 'New Troy' setting is already about?
ReplyDeleteThe 'Trinovantes' had their capital at Troia Nova; King Leir (as Solomon VK alludes) was Locrinius son of Brutus the Trojan, with his brothers Gomer and Albanach; on T(h)anatus was an Isle of the Dead where Thanatos was worshipped and probably the Undead roam (maybe Caesar landed there by accident, maybe not).
Geoffrey of Monmouth is probably the place to start with this, or possibly the earliest bits of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Poul & Karen Anderson's 'King of Ys' series posits a Celtic/Latin/Phoenician fusion society with the odd Goth - no need not to throw all that into the mix too.
Not quite. New Troy was supposed to be a medieval setting with the PCs going adventuring in faerie and in hell. This would be set much further back in time.
DeleteMaybe I got it wrong, but I thought the conception of New Troy was a sort idea that of Geoffrey of Monmouth's C12th was 'real'. I get that this would be set 1000-1200 years earlier, but still in Geoffrey's 'past'. It seems that 'New Tory' is if you like the medieval continuation of 'Troia Nova'.
DeleteOr, Troia Nova is the prequel to New Troy, whichever way you want to see it.
Maybe it isn't! Perhaps I'm drawing parallels where there aren't.
fairy realm to try to win eternal fame for themselves.
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