Historicity

I stole the hell out of this picture of a coin because it is real.

Crossposted here.

There is, I think, an element of historicism to the stuff I put together for a fantasy game. As much as I love fantasy as an idea, I strongly dislike a lot of it in implementation. Religion in particular often rankles me in fantasy stories, and the half-formed cultured that behave irrationally but not interestingly. Too often for my tastes, a fantasy religion is too simple or straightforward. Something potentially fascinating like a fire cult — so much potential! — has little more presentation than “Fire good! Kill protagonist.” Something like a society of cannibals is… just a society of cannibals. “Flesh good! Kill protagonist.”

That, then, is why I think I like this historicity so much. Robert E. Howard said that

There is no literary work, to me, half as zestful as rewriting history in the guise of fiction.

And English fantasist G.K Chesterton remarked

It is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.

I love that trade in primordial human experience. Howard’s stories plainly depicted the cultures in which he set them, and he unabashedly let the reader know their real-world analogues. Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings draws very heavily from Beowulf and Der Ring Des Nibelungen. I did a lot of the same in Vampire — I plundered history ruthlessly, and placed the vampires inside it. I put the Nibelungs in Demimonde. I do the same in D&D because the presented pantheons don’t speak much to me. I don’t need Bane, Cyric, Corellon Barkchips, or their “toaster evils” and unbelievably simplistic, because-the-sourcebook-says-so dogmas.

Sure, I can accept a flying, invisible, ethereal Halfling that can shoot at-will lightning, but I have to believe why he’s doing it. I don’t need setting-justified gods that lead me down the path of the preprogrammed experience when I have Marduk, Thoth, Lugh, Mithras, Mars, Heimdall, and any number lunatic god-kings who placed themselves among the ranks of the divine. I don’t need Zhentarim, Calimshan, or the drow when I have all of history to draw on, like R.E. Howard did — often barely filing off any serial numbers — with his Shemites, Vendhyans, and Picts. I think they resonate more. I think they strike a chord in the cultural memory of people. And, frankly, they’re just plain cooler because they actually were.