One thing that almost every game master, dungeon master, or referee will probably admit to is that their mind almost constantly ruminates ideas for new adventures, player challenges, or exciting settings to adventure in. My own mind is like that, even though my GMing experience isn't extensive. Ideas percolate around the neocortex and thalamus with great frequency. If I had a pound for every roleplaying game plot twist, setting, or scenario I'd thought of I'd be rich. Suffice it to say, that's as far as most of my imaginative process gets. Ideas only.
However, in recent years one of my more persistent game setting ideas bounced around inside my head until it became more fully formed. thus advancing beyond a mere kernel of possibility.
There were three seeds of thought that slowly found each other, circumnavigated and floated into each other's orbits until they combined to become one workable idea. These seeds of imagination and how they matured into a working game setting, I've laid out below.
1. Scottish mythology and legend.
I consider myself fortunate to have been born and raised in a land and culture that is deeply steeped in history, myth and legend. My homeland of Scotland is an ancient land of mountains so old that their igneous roots were laid in the forming of the Central Pangean Mountains, in the Permian period, some two hundred and fifty million years ago. In the late Jurassic period dinosaurs waded through hot mud pools compressing the mud beneath their feet. One hundred and fifty million years later those footprints would be discovered on rocky outcrops on the headlands of various Scottish islands - Eilean a' Cheo, the Isle of Skye being the most well known.
The warm rolling Downs of the south of England boast an archaeological record of human habitation that goes back a staggering half million years. I'm pretty convinced that early humans walked the now Scottish shorelines in the same period, but there is no archaeological record for this, as any trace was obliterated by the deep excoriating glaciers and ice sheets of the Late Devensian Glaciation period - better known to us as the last ice age.
The current earliest record of human habitation within Scottish boundaries is 12,000 BC. I say current, as only twenty years ago the Scottish human habitation record only went back to 8,500 BC, until field walking and intrusive archaeological investigation uncovered upper Palaeolithic hunter gatherer tool making sites in south central Scotland.
(Flint and Arran Pitchstone tools, found at Howburn Farm, Biggar, Clydesdale, Scotland) Our knowledge about our ancestors is fluid with time. Who knows what the next few years will uncover.
In recent decades, the advances of genetic science and research have spotlighted the fact that the majority of Scottish people can trace their lineage back to aboriginal inhabitants of the Neolithic and Mesolithic periods. New interpretations of the archaeological record supports this, and also the fact that Victorian era received history of technological advance only via successive foreign invasions is largely false.
For example, it is a widely accepted factoid (a proposition or opinion repeated often enough to be accepted as fact) that the legendary Scots progenitor, Fergus Mor mac Erc emigrated with his entire people from the north of Ireland in the mid 6th century across the Irish Sea to the south western highlands and islands to found the Scots kingdom of Dalriada. This has, through new interpretation of the archaeological record, been exposed as a falsehood. The uncovered material record (items that have been dug up out of the ground) shows no change in architecture, settlement patterns, diet, clothing or art that would be expected from an invasion of peoples from 'foreign climes'. Thus, the Scots of Dalriada (Argyll and the northern Irish county of Antrim) were in fact in-situ inhabitants for many hundreds if not thousands of years prior to them ever entering the written historical record, or the legends of folk memory via Erc's laddie, big Fergus.
"Wait a minute!" I hear you say, "What has this got to do with Dungeons and Dragons?"
Well, my point is, dear reader, that Scottish cultural memory is an ancient, evolving and remembered experience that exists in deep time. From our ancestors through the millennia past we have a history and folk lore filled to the brim with ancient legends of heroic warriors fighting giants and overcoming evil spirits, vicious monsters and capricious faerie.
Scotland is home to legendary creatures such as:
a) the Mester Stoor Wyrm, a magnificent Storm Dragon that is said to have inhabited the Minch and the north Atlantic, and was the source of many storms.
b) the Beithir, a six legged, lightning breathing serpent that existed in the high corries of the highland mountains, and crushed its prey to death through constriction. It's known as the Behir in 1e AD&D and 5e D&D monster manuals.
c) the Ban Sidh (pronounced Banshee, and can also be spelled Ban Sith, Ban Sidhe, Ban Sithe etc), a shrieking harbinger of death in the household.
d) Tam Linn, a faerie knight who was captured as a human child, and enthralled by the Faerie Queen, and guards her woods against interlopers.
e) the Red Cap, a vicious murderous goblin that kills any mortal it comes across.
f) the Ettin, a two headed giant that lords over the hill country of the northern Scottish Borders from his lofty stone tower.
There are many, many more such creatures in Scottish myth and legend, the most famous being the Loch Ness monster.
The story of the Mester Stoor Wyrm is thought to be around five thousand years old, dating back to the time of the earliest cairn and stone circle builders of the Orkneys and Outer Hebrides.
What I'm saying is that I don't have to look beyond my own kith and kin for inspiring tales of magic, monsters, battles, evil schemes, wars, questing knights and derring do. Scotland's history, myths and legends are chock full of examples. Even the non-fantastical history of its peoples, kings and nobles is full of murder, intrigue, greed, treachery, and forbidden love. As such, I thought it would be a great idea to create a D&D setting based on Scottish folk lore.
2. Grim-dark, and gothic?
I have a firm liking for Games Workshop's old Warhammer Fantasy genre, and specifically the lore of the Empire. I love the grim dark nature of Warhammer, and the gothic renaissance art that inspires the dank landscapes of the Reikland and its cities. The game Mordheim is another favourite and laid influential threads within my game's world lore.
I used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles when it was such a thing. I had a large goblinoid army that kept running away, and my search for a reasonable chance at victory I'd built up a decent sized Empire Army that I was sure would have more staying power, but never in fact reached the gaming table. I still have the armies in boxes in my basement, some fifteen years after I stopped playing. Loads still need painted and based.
Fecker! There's never enough time.
Warhammer Fantasy's Empire was directly influenced by the real world Holy Roman Empire at the height of the Renaissance - a political union of Germanic, Frankish and Latin states that existed for nigh on a thousand years.
(Warhammer Empire Troops, courtesy of Dave Gallagher, and Games Workshop)
This led me to thinking about Scotland's own renaissance history, a period starting with the reign of James IV King of Scots (1488 - 1513), a king second only to Robert the Bruce as probably the greatest monarch Scotland ever had, and ending with James VI King of Scots (1567 - 1625), who inherited the crown of England in 1603 and began the century long journey that brought Scotland and England together into a political union known as Great Britain.
This period was one of much upheaval, both culturally, politically and religiously. It saw devastating warfare that crossed back and forth across the border, leading to critical battles such as Flodden in 1513 where King James IV and much of the chivalry of Scotland were killed, the civil war between Houses Douglas and Hamilton during the minority of King James V (1513 - 1542), the battle of Pinkie Cleugh (pron. Cloo-ch) in 1546 where the Scots army defended its home turf against Henry VIII's invading English troops and was soundly routed, and then the resultant18-month siege of Haddington (1547 -48) where French allies and German and Italian mercenaries bolstered Scots troops in dislodging the English from Scotland's fourth city.
(The parading of the Blue Blanket, with King James IV on the Burgh Muir, Edinburgh, 1513)
It was a period of unrest in the highlands and islands where the MacDonalds fought to regain their forfeited Lordship of the Isles, and lost. Where Clan Campbell persecuted all who stood in their way to aggrandisement, and extirpated Clan MacGregor with the utmost vengeance.
It was a phase of religious unrest, chaos and reformation where religious factions fought, the catholic faith was largely replaced by exultant Scottish Presbyterianism, and Mary Queen of Scots was deposed by the pro-English faction.
It was a place where the world's first recorded assassination by a firearm took place in Linlithgow on 23rd January1571, where James Hamilton of Woodhouselee shot and fatally wounded the Regent James Stewart, Earl of Moray, bastard son of King James V, and half-brother to the deposed Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.
It was a time of fear of demons and evil magics, and the North Berwick witch trials where thirty six people were tortured and burned to death for conspiring against King James VI through foul and macabre magic. Following on from his experiences of the trials, James wrote his bestselling compendium on witchcraft, Daemonologie (second only to his King James bible).
This Scottish Renaissance saw common folk lore bolstered with the names of heroes and villains such as the flying alchemist - John Damian de Falcuis; the wandering king - the Gude man o' Ballengeich; Clann a Cheathaich - the Children of the Mist; George Wishart - heretical preacher of the protestant reformation; Alasdair MacGregor of Glenstrae - the Arrow of Glen Lyon; and of Kinmont Willie - the Border Reiver just to name a few. The tales surrounding these characters told of a rich, visceral, ever-changing, and somewhat glorious yet dangerous period of existence.
The Scottish Renaissance presents a rich tableau of adventure, skulduggery, superstition and violent upheaval. As a Dungeon Master seeking inspiration, what's not to like?
3. British lost kingdoms
The third seed that inspired me was that of the ancient lost kingdom of Gododdin.
(WARNING: pedantry ensues!)
Now, the use of the word kingdom is a bit of an anachronistic misnomer here. King cognates directly from the Old English (germanic) word Cyning, which means ruler. It shares the same root as the Old English word Cynn, kin, or family. Kindred is another good word. A king was essentially the head of a kindred, or tribe, and in that period it had not accrued the paraphernalia that surrounded later medieval beliefs on the rites of kingship, or the divine right to rule.
British rulers of the time period did not refer to themselves or their neighbours as 'kings'.
Back in the 6th and early 7th centuries when Gododdin existed, British territories were largely divided along the lines of ancient tribal allegiances, and as such their 'kings' were in fact chieftains or lords of various hues and renown. It was only the grasp for power by the militaristic House of Ida that established in the north east of what is now England, and south east of what is now Scotland, the hegemony of Germanic speaking descendants of late Roman Imperial soldiers that had been stationed on the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The House of Ida brought with them a disciplined fighting ethos, and the desire to rule, not just their own people, but all the peoples of the British isles. In practice this meant that British tribal warbands were facing the advance of a culture with semi-professional militaristic values and trained retinues.
I digress. Back to the Britons of Gododdin.
(Yr Hen Ogledd, the old north, Wikipedia)
Not much is known about them other than they existed in the south east of Scotland/north east of England and had political/religious centres at Traprain near Haddington in East Lothian (Lleuddiniawn on the map above), at Edinburgh in Mid Lothian, at Eildon hill north by Melrose in the Scottish Borders, and at Yeavering near Wooler on the shoulder of the Cheviot hills in Northumbria. The Britons of Gododdin were descendants of the Uotadini tribe, first mentioned by Ptolemy in his book Geography, published in 150 AD. They are a people shrouded in mists of obscurity, except in snippets of folklore, toponymical names, and sifts from archaeological digs.
Until, that is, we read the poem Y Gododdin composed by a legendary British bard, Aneirin in Edinburgh around the late 6th century. Aneirin was a compatriot of Taliesin, a British bard who has gained fame through the Arthurian romances. In Aneirin's poem the Gododdin blaze into glorious life as heroic, gold torqued warriors resplendent in armour, and riding spirited mighty war horses. They thunder into battle against a more numerous armoured foe, carve a bloody swathe and achieve heroic legendary status through their glorious deaths. They are all cut down, but for one man, the author, who survives to sing his lament.
Y Goddodin is a collection of heroic death songs, or elegies. The meter of the words is sweeping and majestic.
Three hundred gold-torqued men,
combat loving, provoking;
three hundred haughty men,
unified and armed alike;
three hundred spirited horses
that charge with them;
the thirty and the three hundred,
alas! they did not return.
and
It was usual for him to be mounted upon a high-spirited horse
defending Gododdin
at the forefront
of men eager for fighting.
It was usual for him to be fleet like a deer.
It was usual for him to attack Deira's retinue.
It was usual for Wolstan's son - though his father was no
sovereign lord -
that what he said was heeded.
It was usual for the sake of the mountain court that shields be broken through
and reddened before Yrfai Lord of Eidyn.
The poem is extensive and includes 88 stanzas that name numerous ancient warriors and their heroic deeds and deaths. Crucially, the poem names the Lord of Eidyn, the chieftain who ruled Din Eidyn, Edinburgh in the late 6th century as, Yrfai map Wolstan. Yrfai, son of Wolstan. Interestingly, Yrfai appears to be of mixed parentage. His first name is Brythonic, the old British tongue, or Welsh as it is also called, whilst his surname is clearly Germanic.
Yrfai lived in a transitional period of time, where the Brythonic tribal system flourished for a short time after the retreat of imperial Rome, before eventual domination by the Germanic militaristic kindreds of the expanding Cyning-dom of Northumbria.
Fifty years after his glorious death at Catraeth, elegised in Y Gododdin, Yrfai's fortress home of Din Eidyn was laid siege to (638 AD), and captured by the Northumbrian Cyning, Oswald. At its fall the Gododdin slipped into obscurity and the fog of myth. Their lands, language, non-Christian beliefs, art, and social structure were subsumed into mighty Northumbria.
The reason we know very little about the Britons of Gododdin is because they were a non-literate society. The did not write things down or keep a record of themselves, except in their material art, and their songs and tales. If it wasn't for a Welsh speaking scribe writing down the poem a century or two later, we would have lost all knowledge of this people, except for a footnote in an Irish scroll - Anno Domini 638: obsesio etin - The siege of Eidyn.
Why does any of this mean anything to me?
I was born and raised in Edinburgh - Din Eidyn or more modernly written as Dun Edin. I could see the extinct volcano known as Arthur's Seat from my bedroom window, and the fortress of Edinburgh castle from my school playground. The landscape and traditions I was raised in were infused with ancient Brythonic and Arthurian ghosts. The Britons of Gododdin appear as if from some heroic golden age. Their language is alien to me, and yet the landscape of my birth reeks of it in its toponymy.
I wanted to know more about them. I wanted to revel in the land they lived in, and understand their beliefs and fears, and what made them rejoice. I wanted to bring them back to life. I wanted to share my passion for them with others.
4. Bringing it all together
In summation these are the three seeds of inspiration I've taken from my culture and national history:-
1) A monstrous and ethereal mythology.
2) A history of skulduggery, political intrigue, warfare and religious upheaval in the renaissance period.
3) A legend of an ancient and lost heroic warrior people.
When I was scribbling my embryonic thoughts down onto paper, I wrote,
"RPG concept, Renaissance Scotland. Witches are real. Demons are real. Sidhe are real. Shape changers are real. Undead are real. The veil between the real and spirit world is thin on equinoxes and quarter days."
An image of Rabbie Burns' Tam o' Shanter desperately fleeing the grasps of the witches on All Hallow's eve, or Samhain, brought this idea to firm fruition in my mind.
(Tam o' Shanter, by Alexander Goudie)
Instead of referring to the land as Scotland, I decided to use the old Welsh name for it, Yr Hen Ogledd, The Old North. I shortened it to Hen Ogledd, and determined that this realm would be constituted by the ancient Brythonic lowlands of Scotland and the southern Pictish realms of the north and east. As to naming the island known as Britain, I decided not to use the oft used Albion, and instead chose the lesser known, and more ancient name of Prydein.
My setting would be the realm of Hen Ogledd in Prydein. Realms outwith Prydein's shores would either assume their real world sixth century names, or my own bastardisations thereof.
I would come up with an alternate timeline that would follow closely the established Prime timeline of Scotland, but retain the freedom to change some major personas and events if it fit the story I wished to tell.
I wanted magic to be a mysterious force that pervaded everything, was little understood, and was largely feared by all. I wanted to keep the essence of the renaissance, but make it as eldritch and mysterious as possible. I also wanted to get away from real world religious creeds and beliefs, so as to spare my players any potential dogmatic or spiritual issues. I had to come up with an alternative monotheistic religion in place of Christianity.
This in itself was fairly easy for me. In my teens I had been exposed to the excellent books written by the British fantasy fiction author, David Gemmell. His Drenai/Waylander series was a particular favourite of mine, and the Rigante series a firm and very close second. The Drenai sagas introduced the concept of the Source, a divine force for good that was found in all things. Gemmell was a committed Christian, and all his books dealt with to some degree or another the concept of redemption from sin, and the ever present battle between good an evil.
I borrowed the idea of the Source, and morphed it into a monotheistic faith that worships an abstract divine being known as, the Source of all Things. I further subdivided the Source into a spectrum of five elements - Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. These five elements would be known as the Pentarchy, and their combination made up the Source as the whole. I will likely write a separate post on the Source.
To lean on the background of religious persecution, and fear of demonic possession, I would make the church of the Source all powerful, and make its prime purpose the destruction of all arcane powers not of the divine.
"If it is not of the Source then it is of the nine hells!"
In one stroke I made Magic Users rare and ever fearful of the gaze of the inquisition. Cast an overt spell in the public eye, and you risk your spine being rammed up against a stake whilst the kindling is set alight below your feet.
To further increase the idea of gothic nightmare, I gave the night time over to the Sidhe, whom I cast as the vengeful ancient inhabitants of Prydein prior to the coming of man. I made them the heroic inhabitants of the lost kingdom of Gododdin. All the ancient stone circles, henges, standing stones, and duns or hill forts I would ascribe to the Sidhe. They would be the bones of a once great civilisation that inhabited Prydein in harmony with nature, prior to the ascendancy of mankind.
The Sidhe would be my setting's version of Tolkein's elves, but considerably more capricious and vengeful against human kind.
I had more ideas, but I think these should be retained for future posts.
* * * * * * * * *
Crivvens! I look back on what I've written here, and all I can think of is - spasmodic mind fart.
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