The other day, a prospective writer asked me if there are newspapers in the Veiled Age. I reflexively answered yes, then realized that would entail a lot of other advancements we may not want.
In refining the world concept lately, I’ve distilled it to the phrase Cosmic Medieval Fantasy. The purpose of this thread is to zero in on the medieval aspect and to give some guide rails on how to answer questions about technology and society. To that end, I propose the following easy-to-remember Rules of One Thousand:
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The world’s overall level of advancement, including technology, governments, scarcity of knowledge and so on, are analogous to the year 1000 AD.
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In world, it is the year 1000 VA. Calendars are counted this way because the cataclysm that destroyed the Naga civilization was ended by Genos, who created the Golden Veil and mankind, thus beginning the Veiled Age. This change is known as the Dawn, or the Dawn of Man. Like earth, Years are counted backwards from this turning point as “BD” (Before Dawn).
All Naga ruins and artifacts are therefore over 1000 years old.
What was 1000 AD like?
Here are some real-world features of the year 1000, which would be the transition between the early medieval period (dark ages) and the high medieval period:
- The Roman Empire is dead, but we’re nowhere near the British Empire yet. Power in Europe largely rests with monarchs and catholic church. We are also right in the middle of the Byzantine Empire and the Viking Age.
- The first universities were founded, including Oxford.
- Holy Wars are happening.
- 1001 Nights was compiled (stories like Aladdin are from this time)
- Machines are simple unpowered contraptions: windmills, astrolabes. Complex things with small moving parts, like clocks, are about 200 years in the future.
- Books have been familiar for about 500 years, but copies are handwritten, printing press is 500 years away. The first known novel published around then (Tale of Genji).
- Lighting is candles and oil lamps.
- China is in its golden age (Song Dynasty)
- Medicine is humor theory, bloodletting, herbalism.
When we as writers debate whether to include something, a good baseline is to simply google its invention date, noting whether it’s significantly before or after 1000 AD.
Bending the Rules
I’m open to the argument of picking a different year for our baseline assumptions, such as further into the medieval period like 1400. But 1000 is a nice round number. And importantly, it ensures that information is valuable and much of the map is unexplored wilderness. These elements are conducive to adventure and especially horror.
Of course, 1000 VA is not literally 1000 AD, because Edil is not Earth. We can bend assumptions a bit as needed. Here are a couple of thoughts along those lines.
Magic
I think certain tasks, like building houses, would have to be done just as they would have in 1000 AD. But some fields would be different. For example, the pinnacle of medicine is the Church of the Daystar, whose clergy can use holy magic to close wounds and cleanse diseases. Magic always has its limitations and costs, however.
Naga Artifacts
Naga technology is advanced alien tech, therefore basically magic. (Perhaps it even is magical, since magic exists in this world.)
Naga artifacts are hard to come by. Excavation is expensive, dangerous, and probably a relatively new industry; perhaps the tools and techniques to do so have only become recently available. People don’t necessarily understand what they do, let alone how they work.
This makes for a convenient storytelling device. A particular town or person might have a wondrous device of some kind, but it can’t be mass produced or easily reverse engineered, so its impact on the world is limited.