The Lost EmpiresLost Civilizations & Ruins: How to Use Fallen Empires for TTRPG Worldbuilding

Transcript:

[Music] You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we

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This week brought to you by Pastor Doug Wilson who says slavery it's not that bad.

What? So what?

So we uh we're going to be talking about uh lost civilizations this week and um

the unfortunate reality of a lot of civilizations is that they were built upon slavery. But weirdly enough, uh

there's uh there's some cooks in the states right now who are obviously big

Trump supporters and among other horrific things that they're pushing for like repealing the 19th amendment. Uh

they've made comments that uh slavery wasn't so bad and was probably the best time for race relations in the states.

So yeah, own own what you say, Doug Wilson. Say it with your chest. Doug

Wilson, buddy. Yeah, you need to

stop. He's not going to because he has found a venue to give himself power. And that is

uh creating your own little weird cult and moving to a place named Moscow in the States, which I thought was ironic,

but Okay. Yeah, I I I am familiar with that area. There's like a whole belt of

spaces in the states that are like named after Russian cities for some reason. Seems like an odd thing for them to do,

especially given the relations with, you know, Russia for so many years.

I think it was before that that the the town started getting getting their names and they didn't like go back and change them. I guess

I think I remember reading that in a book like a fiction book and my memory is suggesting that it was American Gods.

That sounds like the right book. Yeah. Oh, well, there's there's that place uh

reme. Yeah. Okay. So, so so Doug Wilson

remembers like that whole book in the early part of the series where like some

dude fought against the Egyptian dude about all the slaves, right? Like that.

Oh, you're talking about the Bible, the the central book to his faith that has like

Yeah. multiple chapters about like, boy, the Israelites sure didn't like being enslaved. That probably wasn't very

nice. Yeah, it was it was a fine series. I didn't really like the sequel too much.

Talk about this. Wait, are you talking about the Book of Mormon? Yeah. Yeah.

Christianity, too. Electric Bugaloo. No, but like Yeah, there's there's a whole section about how slave bad.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big section like ah these people should not be slaves anymore. God has something to say about

it. Yeah. Like pretty much right after that he made a bunch of like big rules

about things. Yeah, that seems weird. But admittedly, like the Egyptian Empire

was built on slavery and a lot of the the large empires in history were

and hopefully we know better now. No.

Doug. Oh, Doug. Um, yeah. So, talking about

Lost Empires today, it is a it is a huge staple in fantasy fiction. Yes. for Lost Empires going back all the

way to your friend and mine J.R.R.R. Tolken.

Uh, yes. John Romero. Romero Tolken. Romero Romero.

Yeah. Pretty sure one of those is a Raul. Um,

John Rul Romero. That doesn't sound right.

Anyway, what is your favorite fictional lost empire?

Um, okay. Uh, I had to kind of like remember I honestly like the one that keeps

coming back that I think is neat is Atlantis. Um, yeah. But

like there's some out there that are really intriguing to me. I just haven't like

done enough research to like make them my favorite. Um, I I love everything

that like Dark Souls has done with like really deeply burying lore about what

used to be there that you can easily run right past, but like if you're paying

attention, there's tons of lore to find and it's all hidden in like item

descriptions and stuff like this. Like it's all just yeah, squirreled away from site, but if you

scratch away at the surface, you'll get there. Um, but I remember like I put a lot of hours

into Skyrim and you brought up the Dwmer and I was like, "Oh, right. There's huge

ruins everywhere that I loved the aesthetic of and just never bothered to get the the full story behind. I mean, I

I have put in, if I check Steam right now, I think I'm just north of 400 hours, and none of that information is

in my brain. Yeah, I think I'm at a whopping 30 hours. Oh, yeah.

Skyrim. And a huge portion of that was just stealing all the cheese.

Yeah, my uh my time was spent for a like I'm one of those people who I don't do alts really. Um so it was all like I'm

going to clear out every quest on this uh stealth sniper. And I did. I ran out

of quests. I have a really hard time. I don't think

anybody is going to be surprised by this with openw world games

mostly because I get distracted very easily. I So like there was a main quest and then

I immediately ignored it. My problem with them is that I will go around collecting things to do

and then like I like I I'll put just too much time in because I have I have I

made a list. I have to complete the list. Um Right. which isn't healthy, but it is.

All the check boxes. Yeah, that's how I behave. I mean that's that is why World of Warcraft had such a grip on me for so long. Um, I'm I'm free

now for sure because they stopped making compelling new things to do. Um,

okay. But until they do, hey, every couple years they put an expansion, I come back for like one or

two months just to see what they're doing and it turns out it's the same old [ __ ] again. So,

yeah, that's largely my problem with MMOs in general. Yeah. Um, they really got to like get you on that

bicycle and hope you never leave. I think probably my favorite Lost Empire

is from Wheel of Time. Okay. And that's mostly because of the way

that it's presented as an almost like magic tech modern era.

Mhm. where like the the wizards are running like cars and there's like

flying vehicles and like tall towers and impossible feats happening all over the

place and then they just right [ __ ] it up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like it isn't that it just like

disappears into the ether or whatever. the the actions of those characters

resulted in the decimation of the world and the breaking of everything that they

had built. Like entire new mountain ranges appeared because of this, right? And I think that is dope. And like the

way that it's presented through again like artifact and like sequestered

places like little little places that have been untouched for centuries

that still have like glimmers of that that have like really close ties to the

lore of the world are so interesting to

like brainstorm about and like think about their origins. like how would they have used this and what possible

connotations does this have for the culture of that place? Yeah.

Um there's a there's a section in the

middle of the Wheel of Time towards the beginning where there's a

a device that's used to remember the memories of your ancestors. Yeah.

And that's dope for its own reasons, right? Because you're like getting to live the lives of your ancestors and

like understand the true history of your people, right? Which in this context is often very traumatic

for the people who are going through it because the history that they've been taught and the history that they understand is not the history of their

people for realies. Yeah. Just a lie. Not just a lie, but like

there's a cultural understanding about who we

are and who we are and where we came from are very very different.

Yeah. Um but the thing that I always found most interesting about that is like what what

the [ __ ] did they use that for in a city? Like what when this place was just a

normal place and people were just doing normal people things in this place, what the hell use does that have?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And there there's some like I can definitely think of a few possibilities

for why you would want to use that. Like is that just like therapy writ large? like I want to understand how my dad

actually thought. So I'm going to live through his memories for a bit then

I mean okay if if the idea is that like those who forget the past are doomed to

repeat it like yeah that maybe you just want to like constantly remind everybody of the past just to be safe. Um,

but yeah, like it I don't know how that wound up ultimately playing out, but it

sounds like it's just kind of like it got them stuck in this like feedback loop.

Yeah, a little bit. like the the way that it's used in the modern

time of the book is I think probably very different from how it was used originally, which is

another thing that I really appreciated about Jordan's world, right? Is that there are a lot of things that

seemed like they had a purpose in the before times, but that purpose has been perverted for what we need to use it for

now. If that makes sense. Like Yeah. Yeah. Like um

so the way the comparison to that that I would see is and you're going to hate me

for referencing it yet again, but um the way like technology works in 40k,

right? Where like there's a certain way that things are supposed to work, but that has been lost to us. So, we just use it

this other way now, which might not be correct, but it's as close as we can remember.

Okay. So, continuing this the chain of like talking about things that the other person on this podcast isn't super keen

on. Um, I have seen two anime recently. Okay. That have handled something like

that in a very interesting way. Okay. Uh, one of them is Frierin, which I have

consistently told you that you need to watch. Yeah, we'll see. I I Hey, I did watch

one episode of your Eat the Monster Dungeon show. Two episodes. Watch the rest of it.

Two episodes. Okay. watch the rest of it. But um and the thing that they did in that that

I thought was really interesting is there was like this immortal demon that was captured. Yeah. And it was coming back and they needed

to go and deal with it in like a very street sweeper-ish sort of way, right? Where it's just like, huh, demon's

coming back. Got to go fix them seals. Yeah. Um, and so they go and they're

they're dealing with this and the demon rises and he uses his ultimate attack on

them and it's like this big thing and he's talking about how it like never misses and it's a perfect spell and he uses it

and they immediately just counter it. And he's like, "How how how is that possible? How could you have done that?

This was the perfect spell." And they're like, "Yeah, since we captured you, uh, we reverse engineered that and we teach

that to new mages. That is a basic attack spell. That's mean,

right? Like not just mean, but also like a really interesting look at how time

and the loss of magic can be handled, right? Where it's just like, yeah, we we had that whole thing where

we couldn't figure out how the Romans made cement for a really long time. Yeah. And they made cement that was like

lasting forever. Yeah. But we did get it eventually. Yeah. We got that.

We got it. We figured it out. Um, and then the other one that I've been watching that I thought was kind of fun is like a demon lord is killed, but he's

got that like, well, I'll be back in 500 years type [ __ ] And when he comes back, he's just a guy.

Yeah. Is like the world has moved past what he's able to do. All of the technology in the world is able to do his magic

easier and better than he can. Right. So, like this like incredible massive

demon lord has arisen from his grave and now he's working at [ __ ] Burger King.

Uh, yeah, I'm I'm I'm down with that one. That seems right really goofy.

It is goofy, but at the same time, it's kind of an interesting use of the the Lost Empire trope in that like, yeah,

the the Empire was lost. We we lost all of these amazing secrets. And if we were

to utilize those secrets today, they wouldn't be worth much.

Um yeah, it there there's also the opposite of that idea too, right? Where like if you think

about um the precursors in like uh what was it Halo and

uh to a certain extent in Mass Effect where it's like hey the flood are coming. people way back when figured out

how to deal with them, but they're gone now. And they're like, well, good luck, team. Uh,

yeah. And you're just kind of like, well, I guess I don't know. I guess this is what I'm

doing. And I can't remember like I I didn't really play a lot of Halo because I get

uh virtual sickness. Um Oh, no. But how did they handle that? Was it like the rediscovery of the old tech or

did they have to like find their own way? Uh, no. Well, that's what the halos are. Like the the halo device is like, uhoh,

here comes, you know, nasty little bug dudes. Good luck. So, um yeah, they wind

up just like having to to use the previous uh Empire's, you know, talents

uh because they they left them lying around the galaxy to be like, "Boy, I hope this works."

That kind of reminds me of like the Valyrian steel thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. From Game of Thrones.

Yeah. Just like the the glass weapons and the Valyrian steel which is based on

Damascus steel. Yeah. It's Damascus steel and obsidian. Yeah. And like Damascus steel

ain't that great. I mean it's fine.

Yeah. high carbon content, I guess. Yeah. So,

if that's what you're looking for, then that's good, I suppose. But it's not

significantly better than machined to steel that we're making now. Nope. Um, and like

I I know people like love to, you know, jerk themselves off about

thousands of folds in your Japanese.

But like when you have the certified weeaboo laughing his ass off at that like

it's fine. [ __ ] yeah. katennas, they do their thing. They are

useful for the very specific thing that they were designed to do and

it's not a question of like which sword is going to be the better sword. Like I [ __ ] I love and hate that argument of

like Yeah. broadsword versus katana. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like they're used for different things.

Yeah. You they're tools. You use the right tool

for the job. in totally different circumstances. Yeah. That you would be utilizing those in.

And so like Yeah. That both of them are pretty good, but I'd rather have a mace. Yep. Every time.

Give me something that'll crush armor, please. And thank you. I don't Did I ever tell No, I was having this conversation with a coworker. I

ever tell you about the gooden dog? Uh, no. But I hate it already.

Why? Uh, good dog. Yeah,

it's a dog that's scooter. No, no, guten dog. Like good day. Good morning. Oh, okay.

Um, so the dog I heard guten dog as in good dog. Well,

yeah, it it listen, this is the problem with the Dutch and German peoples and just Anyways, um, so it's probably the

most effective weapon ever made. And basically, it's just a thick spear that they put a big [ __ ] weight on the end

of it and that's it. You're like, what if the

spear was like super heavy? You're like, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. So you just hit people with it and then if a

horse charges you, you put the bottom in the ground and let the horse hit it. And like literal peasants use this to just

wipe out knights that were attacking their little towns. Well, and like that's that's the whole

thing with pikes. Yeah. Too, right? Where it's just like it's a real long stick with a pointy end.

Point it at the guy you don't like. If you were to try and use that in some sort of like hand-to-hand combat by

yourself in a duel, yeah, it would be pretty useless. But it's also one of the most enduring combat

weapons of all time, right? Because it is incredibly useful at killing horsesh

and yeah, you got you got to tailor your weaponry to the thing that you're doing. Yeah. It turns out when you drop a guy's horse on him, he's not feeling too

awesome right after. I can't remember what the weapon is called. But one of my favorite weapons

right now, because again it is very situational and like it would never work in an environment that wasn't um the

Polynesian Islands, right? Is just like this club with shark teeth sewn onto it.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like every weapon from Samoa.

It's [ __ ] brutal. Yeah. That I I watched somebody like cutting

paper with it and it was leaving like perforations Yep. in the cut. And I can only imagine what

that would do to human flesh. You wear any kind of armor, it's going to be useless. Yeah. But but they didn't have armor skin.

Yeah. That's just it. Like you look at the weapons that like the so any any of

the Yeah. Polynesian descending islands like Hawaii and and uh everything like out to Fiji, stuff like

that. And then you look at like the stuff that the Aztecs were using in civilizations where you haven't

developed like steel armor and things like that. All of their weapons are just

terrifying because they're just designed to basically be a handheld blender that

you apply to a human being. It's the equivalent of gluing Lego

pieces or D4s to a golf club and then hitting somebody with it many times.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's heavy pointy and shreddy. Yeah. So so terrifying.

Anyways, um the reason those civilizations are lost is because of technology. Uh

well, technology and imperialism. Well, sure, but imperialism just forced their bad technology

to com to rub up against technology that had been like like for all the problems

with Europe, it forced technological progression in a way that didn't happen in a lot of other places because of

friction between, you know, empires. Yeah. There was a a very strong arms

race that happened over the course of hundreds of years of almost constant

fighting. Yeah. And organized fighting. Yeah. that resulted in advancements that

we didn't see in other places where there was significantly less fighting and more space between peoples and like

more uh transients in the way that the those societies were like structured and

stuff. For sure. So yeah, it's uh a lot of societies got

steamrolled by some very specialized technology and that specialization was

violence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

it would be interesting to see, like, again, going back to like the Lost Civilizations

idea, like how would Atlantean weaponry

fare against more modern uh, like weaponry in Europe?

I don't know. like cuz assuming that the Atlanteanss were advanced for their time

and not necessarily for like compared to us. So, I think that's something that we we kind of always look at with Atlantis

is like you look at Disney's Atlantis and they've got like GBM weapons and [ __ ] but like

if we assume that they were advanced for their time, they had like internal plumbing of some sort, they were a

generally clean people, they had um like regular access to food and water and

like advanced boating technology. Okay. Right.

They're not necessarily going to be shooting beam weapons at people. True. So, what does their weaponry look like?

Is it shark teeth stapled to a uh cricket cricket pad?

Short answer, yes. I hope so.

[Laughter] Okay. So, go ahead.

No, no, I I'm I'm saying let's let's we've talked about like what different

like lost civilizations are out there, but let's let's get into I think I really want to talk about like

what can you do with them and why do they matter in your storytelling? Um, I

think one of the main purposes and and we talked about this a little bit earlier offline uh well off recording

was the function that in particular Tolken used

these civilizations for um these lost civilizations. So there's there's a

timeline that exists throughout history for the rise and fall of civilizations

in general. There have been some exceptions to the rule, but generally

speaking, civilizations and empires in particular last about 250 years before

they fall apart. Um well, and for a lot of those exceptions, one of the things that we do see is like a renewal of empire. And so it isn't

necessarily like the same dynasty. It isn't necessarily like a continuation of exactly the same thing is that somebody

else has shown up and taken it over. Yeah. And it was more of like an internal

hostile takeover rather than an external Yeah. Um you know, you're you're always

going to have your your Romans and your Egyptians and your Chinese and your Mongols that like disprove the rule sort

of, but in general, these things fall apart every 250 years. So,

it's not unreasonable to say that if you're building a world, there should be

at least a couple of lost empires, forgotten kingdoms, whatever, that are

sort of a common reference. I mean, we, you know, there's there's that

internet meme that was going around for a long time about guys thinking about the Roman Empire, but frankly, like

there are still empires, depending on what part of the world that have sort of a day-to-day impact on you, right, where

they are talking about like, oh yeah, like this is a thing that everyone sort of had to contend with.

Um, you can still walk down Roman roads. Yeah. you know that there are still pieces of Roman

architecture littered across Europe. Yeah. And those are going to have an impact

and more so during the period immediately after the fall of the Roman

Empire. Like you have people wisfully thinking about the days of empire. You have a whole lot of people with

ambitions towards creating the next empire because you have all these like small kingdoms fighting against each

other. You have these like small reminders in your dayto-day about the

grandeur of what used to be. Yeah. And no real education system for

understanding how all of that fits together. And so there's this like weird sense of mystery about like what is

wrong. Yeah. Right. Like where where the hell did these huge slabs come from that I walk down and like drag like have my cart

pulled across every day that just make my life significantly easier. I don't know where they came

from. I assume it's the local lord and he's really good at stuff. Yeah.

Right. So it immediately creates some some historical depth. Yeah. To the the world that you're building. I

think that's really important for your immediate immersion. creates like a a

sense of mystery and then it also it just it broadens out the world a little bit because there's stuff that your characters don't know and things from

the past that still exist. Well, yeah. Like it allows you to to flavor

the quote unquote modern day of what your world looks like. I mean, the

reality is people, you know, there's this problem where people start

campaigns and they kind of act like every character was born yesterday. Um,

but that like gets extended to their whole world that

they've built. Um, it's like the world was created yesterday and and not everyone is Alan, you know. Um, so

yeah, it's just like Eberon does that really interestingly. Yeah. Um, it's like Eberon's Lost Empire was

lost a few years ago, right? Right. Like the the Lost Empire, the the

golden age of Galifar, right, was like five or six years ago and then

the Great War happened and the Great War is over and now it's like a bunch of broken kingdoms. So you've still got

like all of the royal families are still connected to the Gatifar royal family in

some way. Mhm. And all of the people who are alive

today have like greatgrandfathers who remember the good old days,

right? Wistfully. Yeah. And and so like that that's an

interesting way to handle the the whole born yesterday thing of just like yeah there was a hundred-year war and then

before that like literally every half elf remembers the kingdom of Galif,

right? Yeah, that makes sense. Um

I I haven't Well, that's an interesting thing, too. Go ahead. Elves. Oh, yeah. Just because like the the

timeline of elves is always funny and I I love the whole like 10,000 years ago.

Yeah. But do you do you have any [ __ ] idea how long 10,000 years is?

I do. Time for like an empire to exist have existed

so far in the past that elves have forgotten about it. Yeah. means that it has to be

ludicrously old. Well, I I think I like the idea that like your current elves remember like

eras of their own fallen empires that they have lived through like

Yeah. like in the way that like the US has like eras of you know their democracy

that are just like ah it's you know when the Democrats were in charge whatever remember the '9s oh boy what a crazy

time except for them it was like 400 years and it was a century ago but you know whatever.

Yeah. Well and like slavery was like two grandmas ago. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

If we had elves in America, um they'd be pieces of [ __ ] Everyone

that'll be racist. Yeah. But no, I think that like again like the

the weapons that destroyed the empire that I grew up in are now the basic spells that we teach

to novice wizards. Yeah. Right. Like the that whole like watching

the marching of time through a lens of empire is interesting to me.

Yeah. Because like elves live 600 years. Yeah. Minimum.

If your empires are lasting like 200 250 years, they've seen a few when they're

old. Yep. Yeah. You you are not the first human empire, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. That's That's cute. The last guys, you know, they they at least gave healthcare to their

citizens. [Laughter]

Uh can you can you imagine like the moral compass that elves could provide

for like that that like sense of detachment? Oh yeah. like, oh boy, the the Roman

Empire, they they had a very different way of handling things. Like, I don't

know. Three kings ago, they tried that and oh boy, did not go well for them.

I was trying to think of like a thing that the Roman Empire was moral about. I was having a really hard time.

Um, they were okay. I'm not saying they were like super moral, but um their

whole like, hey, you can keep all of everything that you like and just be a

Roman and pay your taxes and we'll kind of leave you alone was pretty interesting.

Oh yeah. Then not like forcing you to amalgamate into the culture. Yeah.

There's like you can be a Roman without being a Roman. Early proto version of Canada's cultural

mosaic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's definitely who we learned it from was the Romans.

[Laughter] Uh All right. So, what's what's your favorite use of empires in like your

campaigns or your storytelling? There's Oh, what was it?

Um, I forget what I was doing it with, but I I used the um dragon marks from

from Everon there and just alluded to like old dragon houses.

Um, that was fun. It is fun.

I tend to use Lost Empires

as like primarily flavor. Yeah. And then also for the purpose of

prophecy. Oh, okay. So, like one one of the fun things that you can do with a Lost Empire that I

don't think you can really do with anything else is come up with

bits and pieces of a mystery that don't have a solution. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Right. Because they they're lost. Have them anymore. Right. Like you're looking for a book

that is 500 years old. That paper is dust now. Yeah.

So, you're not going to be able to find it. You're not going to be able to translate it unless you get incredibly lucky and you happen to find like a copy

some monk made in a basement somewhere. Yeah. Oh god. That just that makes me

think like is like Book of Eli is just talking

about a lost civilization, but it's ours. We just kind of like forgot.

Did you ever read a canacle for liawitz?

Uh, [Music] no.

Okay. Um, it's a book about a post-apocalyptic

monk, or at least the first book. It's a a threebook book. There's three sections book. The first part is my favorite and

it's about a monk who finds a holy relic of St. Lawitz.

Okay. And St. Lawitz is the guy who invented the uh fallout shelters that were used

to survive the nuclear war. Oh, okay. And so the relic that he finds is a

blueprint for a Fallout shelter, but

this guy doesn't know what that is. Right. Right. Like he's never seen a blueprint before. He just sees the word liowitz written in handwriting at the

bottom of the the thing, and he's like, "Well, this is obviously a holy relic, so I got to take care of it." and he spends the rest of his life creating

this like beautifully embellished version of this thing that he doesn't

understand. And so they've just got this like holy

version of this thing with like marginelia and like all of the the drawings and like cute embellishments

and it's like guilted in gold of like a drawing this guy just does not understand. It's just a bunch of like

blue paper with lines on it. Right. That's pretty wild. And I love

that idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The veneration of the unknown.

Yeah. And like finding bits and pieces of ancient empires that just don't make

any sense, right? And you don't know how to make them make sense because you just lack the context.

Yeah. For whatever it is that you're trying to do yet. I absolutely love putting together mysteries through ancient

empires. Um, and then like

I I have a note here that just says like cautionary tale and symbol of hubris.

Um, that's me. One of my favorite things to do with empires

is end them in fun ways and then strongly suggest that your empire is

going to end the same way soon. I mean, that sounds a little on the nose

right now, but uh well, you know,

yeah. Hey, thanks for making it all the way

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