For millennia, somewhere on the Eurasian steppes near the Caucasus Mountains was a great barbarian generator. Its exact location and governing traits are still unknown, but it spawned wave after wave of invading cultures that swept across Europe, West Asia, the Indian Sub-Continent and Africa. It's like half of the Old World brought down some serious agro on itself. The barbarians, as their new neighbors thought of them, shared certain commonalities in language, social structure, religion and appearance. Collectively, they changed the world and today many nations speak derivatives of their ancient languages. Or as one historian pointed out, 1700 years ago Europe was overrun by barbarians who conquered the existing nations and have ruled the continent ever since.

This month we will look at a phenomenon that has greatly impacted history, and continues to do so today. We're talking about migrations, the great movements of a people from one place to another. Over the course of human history, various factors have set whole cultures on the road. These factors can be broken down into push and pull factors. Push factors drive a people from their homes, while pull factors attract them to new homes. Migrations can also be voluntary (the people choose to relocate) or forced (people are moved against their will).

And Away We Go

The global effects of mass migrations have shaped the world we know. Besides Europe, Indo-European migrants spread their culture and language into South Asia, drastically re writing the histories of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Persia, and Bengal. In the American Southwest, the Navajo and Apache drifted into the region centuries ago and upset the balance between the Puebloan Cities. Of course any discussion of migrations can't leave out the Mongols who managed to affect the course of Western, Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian civilizations.

Two ways that mass migrations can be used in gaming is in campaign formation and as scenario ideas. Often in campaigns, races and cultures are placed in areas with little regard as to how they got there. The best, and oldest, published campaigns take migration into account, so why not our homebrews?

Start with looking at your campaign world centuries before the start of the campaign. What peoples where there from the start? In a fantasy world, who was placed where by the Gods?

If planning a sci-fi game, what species started on which worlds? Now, move forwards a century at a time. Think about what factors might make a person wants to pick up and move. Is there a chance for a better life elsewhere? How about pressures from neighboring peoples or environmental changes?

Using a combination of push and pull factors lets you uproot a people and guide the direction of their migration.

Once you have people on the move, consider how the experience will affect them. Look at the terrain they have to cross, be it vast deserts or the vastness of space. How long will the migration take? What or who will they encounter along the way? Will they make friends or enemies? Will it be a sweeping route of conquest, or a grinding death march?

Let's apply these ideas to a scenario and a campaign setting for a fantasy game. The scenario takes the above questions and uses them to set up the plot of what appears on the surface to be a simple military exercise. For the campaign setting, I have taken the migration questions and mixed them liberally with the historical fall of the Roman Empire and barbarian invasion of Europe.

Attacks by bands of goblins have been increasing along the kingdoms far frontiers. The queen is growing concerned, and dispatches the party to investigate. There they find not just isolated groups, but whole tribes on the move. The numbers threaten to overwhelm not only the border defenses, but possibly the whole kingdom.

Gathering the defenders to repulse the invasion is just one option, and one that is not terribly viable. Instead, the PC's should investigate and discover why the goblins are on the move. Avoiding the trite and predictable evil mastermind wizard option, the game master can instead apply the above questions to the scenario. The push factors for the goblins could be as simple as a dragon moving into their home range, or as complex as a major natural disaster or environmental change. Perhaps the goblins are willing to talk to the party and relay their sad story of being pushed out of their homes by a horde of ogres, and if only the ogres were stopped they would return. The party confronts the ogres only to find that several tribes of giants invaded their ancestral lands, thus forcing the ogres into the goblin's territory. Work your way up the monster food chain until you get to the true source of the problem. For extra fun, make the chain a circle that leads back to the goblins, who have overhunted the region and crashed the ecosystem.

The Fall of the Iosian Empire

The Iosian Empire once spanned the length and breadth of the Inland Sea. Its might influenced most of the continent of Pangya. With a wave of his hand, the Emperor could alter the fates of millions. It all came to an end a little over three centuries ago. In the far north of the empire outposts reported an increase in unrest amongst the nomadic Kreijaan peoples.

Groups of Kreijaan from beyond the borders had been moving south with their herds. This migration displaced the Kreijaan bands living within the empire. As Kreijaan refugees moved into the northern cities of the empire, exacerbating the overcrowding and general unrest endemic in the empire.

The Kreijaan were being displaced due to pressure placed on them by another nomadic group, the previously unknown Amari. The Amari possessed a greater level of organization than the Kreijaan, as well as a fierce chariot based warrior culture. These barbarians from the far north were themselves pushed out of their homelands by a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The Amari continued to move south, overwhelming the border outposts and placing further pressure on the Kreijaan bands. The Kreijaan turned to the empire for support and protection, but the imperial bureaucracy was too slow to react to problems on the far edge of the known world.

The combined pressures of the Kreijaan refugees and Amari invaders proved to be too much for the Northern Provinces. General failures of security lead to an increase in banditry. Panic over the presence of the Kreijaan and fear of the approaching Amari lead to riots in the cities. The massive unrest precipitated a slave revolt that stretched imperial resources in the region to a breaking point. The following failure of Iosian Government in those provinces eventually resounded across the empire, leading to a general collapse of the Empire.

At the start of the campaign the situation in the Northern Provinces, now known as the Five Kingdoms, is based on the events of the Amari Invasion. The former Iosian Provinces are replaced by five Amari Kingdoms. The Amari live in a tense truce with the Kreijaan, and the surviving Iosians and slave populations have been absorbed into the Amari culture. Iosian ruins dot the landscape, providing exciting places to explore and uncover lost treasures and forgotten magics.

Now you are prepared to wander through your own bit of history. If you are interested in some more bits of history, check out the upcoming supplement for BRP Rome: Veni, Vidi, Vici. The pack contains four scenarios designed around the fall of the Roman Republic. The adventures were written by Pete Nash (the creator of BRP Rome), Conall Kavanagh, and your truly, Ken Spencer. It is now available from Alephtar Games.