A Bit of History
Just about every fantasy RPG campaign I have been involved in draws its core assumptions from European history during the time between the fall of Rome and the end of the Renaissance. Indeed, these centuries are often conflated together to create a 'fantasy medieval'. Even when this is not the inspiration, the historical sources tend to reside in Europe, sometimes Asia, or (rarely) Africa or Central America. How about local sourcing my inspiration and looking at something closer to home, or even home itself? Why not North America as the source, and why not a span of centuries ranging from the 17th to the mid 19th? For this little project I have chosen Indiana and neighboring states with an emphasis on the Wabash Valley. For eras to draw from, I am looking at the early contact, fur trade, early republic, and pioneer eras, roughly from 1650 to 1830 C.E. Most of the inspiration will come from the latter parts of this span, with some slight anachronistic modification (as is common in most fantasy settings).
We are going to look specifically at using local sourcing for inspiration for fantasy campaigns, but the same techniques can be used for other types of campaign running from straight historical to historical plus, or even modern horror that draws strongly from the past. Along the way we will be using my own home state, Indiana, as an example. Next month the area will be expanded further and I will present the Old Northwest Territories of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, with a strong focus on Indiana and neighboring areas.
A Little Research
It doesn’t take much to research your local history, just a visit to the library or a local historical society. Most libraries have some information regarding the local history, often books specifically dedicated to that topic. This makes things much easier, especially if your locality is small and not well covered in the major history books. In our example, Vincennes and the Wabash Valley, although important to the history of Indiana, is not a terribly popular subject outside of specialized historians and archaeologists. If you live in a major city such as New York City, London, Tokyo, or Chicago, there is a plethora of information, more than you could possibly process in a lifetime, much less the time it takes to put together a fantasy campaign. Focus your research on one era, drawing inspiration from that while only glancing at others. For out example I am looking at the early to late contact period and the pioneer era, but I am not ignoring local history that takes place in later periods, indeed as we will see below I am incorporating at least one piece into the campaign.
Depending on the era you are using for inspiration, there may be primary sources available in local or state libraries. These can range from newspapers to major documents, or even something as obscure as the minutes and reports of local governing bodies. At times these can be difficult to wade through, and this is the point at which a good helpful librarian or archivist can come in handy. Being friendly and courteous goes a long way, and securing the assistance of an expert in the use of the local catalogs and collections can save you time as well as lead you to great ideas.
Local historical societies are great things to visit, the people who work there are usually very enthusiastic about their local history and often possess not just expert knowledge, but know things that are not going to appear in the history books. There is a myth in Vincennes that during prohibition, bootleggers dug tunnels running from downtown to the Wabash River. While this has been conclusively proven to be false, no tunnels have ever been found despite new construction tearing up the areas as well as ground penetrating radar scans having been made at nearby archaeological sites. This small myth gives a huge idea, perhaps under the town of Vincennes is a network of tunnels, their origins unknown, that lead to a larger cave complex, a perfect setting for a dungeon crawl.
Another good source for inspiration is actual historic sites, many of which, at least in the United States, have been preserved and are open to the public. While the amount of information given in the public history tours and literature is often not much more than what can be found in a decent internet or library search, being on site will help you in creating vivid, living descriptions of other times. This is especially true if you have access to a living history site, such as Conner Prairie here in Indiana. Even if all you get to do is walk around some old ruins and look at a few artifacts in a case, its more than you had before and can give you just the right idea you need of your campaign. One of the things I always take away from visiting 18th century homes and fortifications is how small they are in total area, at least here on what was once the frontier.
During your research, try and uncover some defining themes and conflicts of the era, and work these into your campaign. Look for interesting historical figures that would make great NPCs, even if they stay in the background. For my campaign, the major themes I found during the research were man vs. nature, man vs. the unknown, and of course, man vs. man. A strong sense of pushing forth the boundaries of civilization, of having the freedom to live as one chose, and pioneers possessing ephemeral lifestyles and radical ideologies. On the other side of the coin, you have the destruction of culture and loss of home suffered by the First Nations, and thus cultural conflict between the pioneers and natives. Adding to this, the French residents of the area wanted very different things out of the landscape and the First Nations, and had a different relationship with both than the largely Anglo-American pioneers who were streaming into the region. In a two mall historical footnotes concerning the construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal during the 1840's, we see the idea of cultural and ideological conflict once again coming to the fore. There were several instances of isolated homesteaders committing acts of sabotage against the canals and even shooting canal workers based on ideas of the 'evil' of big government funding the canals and taking the farmer's lands (despite the fact that having better access to markets would help the farmers). Along similar lines, one of the canal construction companies brought in workers from Ireland, but did not bother to separate out the Protestants and the Catholics, which led to a three month long running gun battle as the partisans worked out their differences and brought centuries old grudges to bear in a New World where they had increased access to weapons and little or no law enforcement to stop them. Cultural conflict will be a major part of this campaign, possibly spread across multiple races as per the norm in fantasy settings, but possibly not.
Last but not least, once you have explored the academic and other local sources, start researching a little father afield, namely folklore and legends. I have gotten great use out of books such as Oddball Indiana and the Haunted Indiana series. Similar titles exist for other states in the Union, as well as places throughout the world. While often lacking in creditability, these folkloric sources are great repositories of weird ideas and liftable concepts.
Get out the Map
First of all, get a map of your area; you will need it not just for your campaign, but also to help find places such as libraries, historical societies, and historical sites. A modern map is an ideal place to start, but historical maps, especially maps that are primary sources are a great help (a primary source is anything that is an actual historical document, created in the era by people of that era such as maps, journals, correspondences, court records, and other government documents). This will be the basis of your campaign map and a fine start to brainstorming how your campaign will be laid out.
I like to start with a modern map and begin removing history layer by layer until I get to bare wilderness. First I take off the roads, then the cities, and finally scan the map for 'natural' features that are certainly not that. Look specifically for dams and reservoirs, as these are common features that can sneak in. Don’t worry about removing something you want to keep later, it can always be added back in. Once you have the map stripped down to the natural landscape, you need to make an important decision as to how the map is going to look like in the end.
There are two ways to approach the map, either of which sets up later decisions you make with the campaign. The big question is if you are going to use the actual names of places and people or not. There are two schools of thought on this, one is that by using actual place names and people you are reinforcing the historical aspect of your campaign, as well as giving those players who are history-savvy some idea about what things are. Even if a player does not know much about local history, he should still know something about local geography and having familiar place names can help a person get into and understand the campaign. The downside, and thus the other school of thought, is that this distracts from the campaign. First of all, it may ruin the suspension of disbelief when the PCs are fighting a mighty dragon at the lake where the players went fishing as kids. Some people have a hard time separating their modern notions from those of a fantasy world, and you may encounter preconceptions about a place or person leaking through into your campaign. In addition to using actual place names, you have to decide how much your fantasy map will match the real world geography. Will you change coastlines, forests, hills, mountain ranges, and rivers to different courses, maybe adding or subtracting features or simply making the lines off kilter?
As far as my own campaigns I prefer to use a map that is close to the actual geography of an area, as well as utilizing real world place names. I do alter some names, though in this case it is either to play off the name of a location or to use an older, historical name. Two examples from the work on fantasy Indiana and Vincennes, the city of Terre Haute, and the White River. Some in this neck of the woods refer to Terre Haut as simply 'the Haute'. Preserving the French influence on the name (as well as on the historical period we are drawing inspiration from), I will change the name to Le Haute. The White River is major river in the state and a major tributary of the Wabash, so it needs some attention. With a slight name change to the Miami (one of the First Nations that occupied the region) name of Wapihanne, I retain a historical place name while at the same time adding some 'foreignness' to the name. However, this 'foreignness' may be somewhat limited as many natural features and some towns have names derived from Miami, and the name may sound less like an exotic local and more like a summer camp.
During the research phase you should be looking for descriptions of the region that pertain to the era you are using for your inspiration. Humans have a tendency to greatly alter the natural landscape, and there are likely to have been massive changes over time. Indiana, which will be the center of my campaign, was once covered in deep old growth forest. Early accounts speak of giant trees and an open forest floor. For the most part, these trees are gone, cut down for timber or cleared to make way for farms (I found out in my research that Indiana led the nation in timber production during the mid to late 19th century). These forest will need to go back, as will some other features of the natural world that have disappeared. The Great Black Swamp extended through Ohio into Indiana, and besides providing a change of pace from forest; the name conjures up all manner of wicked fun. This and other large areas of wetlands were also drained in the 19th century, thus giving me historical inspiration to put lots of swamps, mashes, and bogs on the map. Finally, the Great Plains stretched an arm out through Illinois into Indiana, though today you could hardly guess that by looking at a map.
Once you have your map stripped down to the natural terrain, considering adding to or changing that terrain. Don’t go overboard, one of the advantages of local sourcing your fantasy RPG campaign is that everyone at the table should be familiar with at least the basics of the setting. Feel free to develop some ideas that lie outside of, or are based off of local history and geography. Where the Wapihanne flows into the Wabash River there is a town called Mount Carmel. Although the terrain is slightly hilly, there is no mountain there, so I have decided to add a mountain, with a dragon on top that hunts the confluence and levies a toll on all who pass through.
Once you've got the base natural features on your map, its time to start adding the towns, roads, cities, and whatnot. Keep in mind that you are not putting everything back, just what you want for the type of campaign you are planning to run. For my Old Northwest Territories campaign I am looking for a more wilderness setting, and thus I am only putting a few major settlements in and no modern roads. What will be a big help at this stage is if you can find a historical map (again, a primary document) of the area. You may be asking yourself why you didn’t just start with one instead of removing the modern down to the natural world. By taking the time to remove the modern from a modern map you are allowing yourself to discover features you may not have, teaching yourself to view the world without modern distractions, and having to make judgment calls about what you want to keep and what goes. During this process, I found two things of interest that needed to go into the campaign. First, the Buffalo Trace was a natural trail or road made by migrating herds of Buffalo as they crossed the state. This flattened route through the woods acted as a major artery of travel for humans and needs to go on the map. Also, I looked into the names of parks, and discovered Shades State Park. This park is the home to some of the state's last stands of old growth forest, largely due to the ruggedness of the terrain preventing logging. The really interesting part, at least for the campaign, is that the area was once called the Shades of Death, legend has it that a pioneer was brutally murdered by his abused wife, we are talking axe murder here, messy and evocative. Haunted forest here we come.
In addition to modern places and details, keep in mind the prehistoric sites of your area. I would be remiss if I did not include the Adena, Hopewell, Fort Ancient, Mississippian, and other mounds in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. These man-made features just scream to be included in a fantasy campaign, possibly as lost civilizations, strange earthen formations, gates to other planes, or arcane wards preventing things from awakening.
Next month I will expand the example to include the whole of the Old Northwest Territories, as I transform Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin into a fantasy world. Until then, enjoy a bit of local history in your next RPG.
