Topic: Medieval Sim
Hail friends!
Talk hath begun in times of late
pertinent unto
a sim in the Middle Ages set
illecebrous for you.
=-D
Who's drawn to play a medieval sim? I think I could GM one. I have a BA and MA in the period's history and lecture part time on related topics. :-)
Phoenix already had Silent's excellent Kingdom for a Stage (development thread here, sim index here, which I personally really valued and enjoyed.
Set in 1410, it followed the journey of a group travelling to England from the Continent, brought together by fate, and set to discover a plot to overthrow the King!
I found Silent's setting exemplary, but we wouldn't have to set this proposed sim in 1410 - we could go earlier, up to 1,000 years earlier in fact, and we could go c. 100 years later and still be medieval.
Some possibilities:
A.D. 410: Rome is burning, sacked by a foreign enemy for the first time in 800 years, as ineffectual Emperor Honorius loses control of province after province to rebels and barbarian hordes. In Britain, the last remnants of Imperial rule are beset by Picts and Scots in the north and west, and Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from the east and south. Desperate, they write to Honorius begging him to send troops, but the Emperor, himself beset on all sides, replies that the British cities must "look to their own defence."
This is a time of great calamity and collapse, but also a time of opportunity, for any brave enough to heed Honorius' call and rally to the defence of the British civitates, and for any pagan impetuous enough to push forwards, and claim this land as his own.
A.D. 939: King Æðelstān, grandson of the great king Alfred, and unifier of the kingdom of the English, is dead. Immediately, the men of Wessex crown Aethelstan's brother Edmund as king, but the men of York elect the Dane Olaf Guthfrithson, king of Dublin, as their ruler, and he seizes the north and midlands, rending the young kingdom of England in twain. Will the English prevail against this threat and reunite the lands under one king, or will the south fall to Viking rule?
1106: Henry I finally sits as undisputed king of England and duke of Normandy, having seized England after 'witnessing' his older brother William Rufus' accidental death in a hunting accident and then taking Normandy from his oldest brother Robert by force in battle this year. A harsh but skilful ruler, Henry must now establish his dominance over the fractious barons of both England and Normandy. To achieve this, he is elevating many 'new men' to positions of power as landowners, knights, and judges to help him govern and control his lands and to punish those who would try to take it from him.
1339: The French have invaded Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney, and a desperate relief effort is under way to liberate the Channel Islands. But pirates, funded by the French, the Scots, and even the English themselves, raid the coasts and harry the people.
1485: Welshman Harri 'Henry' Tudor, supported by the French and the Scots, has seized the throne of England from Richard III of York, proclaiming himself Henry VII. Killing king Richard in battle at Bosworth Field, Henry's victory has ended the Wars of the Roses, but he has not yet won a lasting peace for his kingdom...
