Have any troupes got ahold of the 1st century AD text and followed the trading route atlas and traveller's handbook for the Indian Ocean?
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I thought about it (my troupe just had an adventure to Damietta, and they love adventuring in Egypt) but then I thought about it encouraging travel to India, and realising how much work trying to figure out a Mythic Hind would be. For now I'm sticking to traveller's tales encouraging them to try the Red Sea.
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Belated reply...
I started writing up some material for down the eastern coast of Africa using sections of the Periplus that was leftover from Between Sand and Sea that wasn't workable for the Egypt book...
Once Upon the Erythraean Sea | My Life as a Grog (Boats)
Languages of East Africa | My Life as a Grog (Languages)
The Comoros Islands are particularly interesting as they were visited by King Solomon and have an indigenous jinn tradition - technically they are below the equator though so in Mythic Europe terms they would potentially have to be beyond the Ring of Fire or in a region or similar...
Oh and Mythic Hind is technically Faerie - David wouldn't let us use China (Serica) or India (al-Hind) as "real" places due to the medieval paradigm so basically the further east you go everything breaks down into Faerie or Magic - I wrote "the Silk Road" section of tCatC and everything goes all "soft places" after you cross the Pamir into the Tarim basin or the Indus
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In Mythic Europe, is that why Alexander's army turned around at the border of India?
They had reached the end of the mundane/solid world.
Edit: Would Alexander the Great have been invited into House Tytalus if they were contemporary ?
Kinda makes me think about "The Dream of Earl Aubec" in the Elric books by Moorcock.
How the borders of the young kingdom belong to Chaos, and can be tamed, and claimed, by human champions (which, sadly, if applied to Mythic Europe, badly echoes real-world colonisation and racism)
Yes look the colonialism aspect is unfortunate - the thinking was that Mythic Europe was what medieval Europeans thought it was, with all the potential for good and bad that follows...
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I was more thinking about this
You could have, for exemple, the Dominion encroach on to Faerie or Magic to create more "real places".
But, while I find it cool with Aubec and Chaos, I'm uncomfortable with this.
It could maybe be done, and done well, but I don't trust myself on that.
Yes, that comes from ArM3 and before / Realm of Reason as a concept... you could do that I guess, but the intent of having things break down at the edges was to allow for Faerie & Magic transition for more fantastical locations not to have a "land rush" LOL
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where can i play it?
What does this imply about the Mongols, who are poised to invade Europe starting in the 1220s
See tCatC pages 179-184 for the Mythic Steppe for the canon version of Mongols.
When I wrote this Silk road Section section, it was longer but when editing decided to cut some of the material as we were already way over length even after David granted us an exemption (fun fact: tCatC is actually the longest ArM5 corebook) and because as much as I love the area, I felt it was the least likely material to be used in most Sagas.
I did keep the Mongols however and presented 4 different variations beyond them being simple mundane barbarians:
1 Faeries from Arcadia summoned by the Jaxartes spirits (the endless Nomad Cycle)
2 The Bright Faerie Court of Prester John
3 Demons from Hell
4 Divine retribution made manifest
Option 1 was "The Endless Nomad Cycle" sidebar aka "Gog and Magog"
There was also a Story Seed about a lost Hermetic lineage out in the Steppes descended from the lineage of Hercynius. Sure maybe it's a bit Return of the Clans from Battletech LOL but I liked the concept of a returning offshoot of the OoH other than the Diedne as a returning potentially equal in power threat...
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In Lands of the Nile there are a couple of subtle allusions to India in the Ethiopia section, but nothing blatant...maybe a referencing story seed
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Yeah look Lands of the Nile is great, get it anyway LOL. It has Timothy'd "Adventurers Guild" which is actually based on a historical organisation I kid you not!
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