Bard of Valiant

I’ve been fortunate enough over the last twenty years to indulge some of my interest in things medieval through travel in Europe. Visiting castles, ruins, ancient sites, and festivals has really enhanced my gaming experience. As a player, it is easy to conjure up images of narrow, cobbled streets and crowded markets. As a GM, it is easy to draw on examples from recreated swordfights, or windswept castle walls, or damp underground corridors, when I’m trying to generate a sense of the experience for my players.

My most recent trip was to Athens, Greece. The sights in Athens are likely much more familiar to most people due to their broad historical impact, and the fact that, architecturally, Greek style has been emulated in many countries. Wandering the ruins and reconstructed temples of Athens gives you a great sense of the vibrancy of the culture that produced such wonders. Medieval European cultures, by contrast, had hunkered down into their dark ages, and don’t tend to project the grandeur that ancient Greece does. As a result, I’m modeling one of the countries in my Dominium game world after Hellenic-era Athens. I’m trying to capture the vibrancy, and power that Athens had. Imagine a country dominated by wizards, the scientists of fantasy worlds, that is characterized by intellectual vigor and feats of spectacular architecture.

Riding the metro beneath the streets of Athens, and imagining (with help from the artifact displays in many of the stations) the layers of history through which I was traveling, I found that the names of the stations began to take on the personalities of various NPCs: An ambitious wizard-diplomat-spy named Monastiraki—a sort of James Bond in a toga. Alexandras and Attiki, a pair of soldier-brothers, seasoned veterans of their city-state’s conquering army. Kalithea the temptress, innkeeper extraordinaire. The metro map by itself will lead to hours of gaming fun, and the names have a cultural unity that tells my players they’re in a different country from the one they’ve left.

In future posts I’ll share some castles and a medieval festival from Portugal, caves in Slovenia, a salt mine in Austria, and castle ruins in Estonia, and talk about how I’ve used, or plan to use, those experiences in my gaming.