Archaeology and Anthropology - Blog Carnival Roundup

A magnificent set of posts have been written up for September 2023's Anthropology and Archaeology blog carnival (which I hosted). This post is my roundup of all the entries, where I give a micro-blurb and share a thought or two. As to the etiquette of reading this roundup; take your time - there are a lot of blogposts to read, leave some comments - the carnival is about building blogger camaraderie and lastly, follow blogs generously. Optionally, you can even write up your own thoughts about September's entries. It has been an experience hosting and I would recommend it to others. Find details about signing up here. Now, on with the roundup; 

Gift Economies by Gabriel 

- The first of a trilogy of very interesting posts, all academically conceived and generally with links and asides directing the reader to the journals and papers that inspire and evidence parts of the post.

- This post is a must read for anyone wanting to run economies other than the OSR standard.

- Gabriel really considers how to make these systems gameable which is a big plus for me.

AND Strange Rites

- Use this post to create more culturally diverse and unique religious rituals. The post has drawn inspiration from history, anthropology, and ethnographic literature.

- Generate a few rites and plug them straight into your campaign calendar.

- While inspired by real rites and customs, Gabriel remembers to include the fantastic elements of the game. 

AND Leader Types

- Have you considered having different types of leader in your game? What do I mean? Read the post.

- This post will make you really think about the leaders in you game and will result in you churning out more than a few interesting characters.

- Makes you think about power dynamics, which can really spin out into flavorsome faction and campaign play. 

Maximum Recursion Depth Vol. 3, or Everybody Wins if We're Having Fun: The Animapunk RPG by Maxcan7

- Macan7 has been thinking about animism. In this post they give an overview of the setting and tenants of the headying animapunk world of Maximum Recursion Depth Vol. 3. 

- True to name, the surreal and dreamlike world of Maximum Recursion Depth is weird and wonderful and plays with big concepts in creative, metaphysical ways. 

- The factions and entities that oppose the Dreaming are written about in a delightfully schizoid style, it'll make you want to push yourself to ever stranger and more considered creativity.   

An Anthropology and Archaeology Slush-Pile by Sofinho

- Sofinho has collated their thoughts on this month's theme into a slush pile. These ideas include, but are not limited to:

- Roleplaying games as experimental archaeology 

- Storytelling, two ways

- Ancient Aliens!!!

D66 Religious Taboos by The Oracular Somnambulist

- The Oracular Somnambulist presents 36 rules that will make for fun sessions and potentially wacky dynamics as your players navigate a culture's religious taboos. 

- This post would work wonderfully in conjunction with Gabriel's post on Rites.

- Replace those cannots with musts to transform those taboos into encouraged acts for extra fun.  

Cultural Mores of the Dragonbloods by Xaosseed

- The first of two posts by Xaoseed in which they explore some of the cultures in their campaign world. This time; the egotistic and enigmatic Dragonbloods. 

- This is probably the best expression of a dragon-descended race and its culture I've read. 

- The post includes rules for the festival game of Dragon Diving in which players are flung from a great height clinging to a particularly crocodilian, wooden 'dragon'.

AND Ways of the High North Goblins

- Next, Xaoseed explores frozen Lhirogref, the ancient goblin civilization-state. It's an interesting place and I'm certain you will find inspiration for your own game within this post. 

- The sled encounters are particularly enjoyable.

- I want to visit this place as a player. 

Traces of Primal Gods in the Ruins by VDonnut Valley

- A mysterious and archaeological glimpse into Vdonnut Valley's world of  Biteara and system for discovering the weird things that litter the Valley of Titans. 

- The items have a fun, kind-of Roadside Picnic vibe to  them, my favourite being the wound-recalling bird-headed flute.

- Orb is just a fun name for a god. I'd play a cleric of Orb. 

Mazmorras de Eberron (Dungeons of Eberron) by DM GONZ

- GONZ offers up an updated overview post detailing the varied dungeons of Eberron. They write lucidly and informatively, giving a good survey of the setting.

- The blogpost can be mined for world-building ideas and with such an established world, there should be more info on those parts of the setting that pique your interest.

- For example, I like the idea of adventurers delving into the storage dungeons of nomadic orcs, especially those built during the ominously named 'Age of Monsters'. 

Archaeology of the Sea of Stars by Sean H

- Sean H takes us to the Sea of Stars, a post-cataclysm realm of high-adventure.  

- The post serves as something of a primer for thinking about archaeology as an in-universe activity in DND style worlds in general.

- I especially like the idea of still-living ancient agents (in this case dragons) not wanting archaeologists to uncover evidence of their own misdeeds and suppressing information about their their own historical pasts.  

Kith and Kin: (Not) Extinct Animals and Domesticates by Janet

- Kith and Kin is Janet's setting, (here's a primer). In this post they write about how the Kith and Kin live with various species of extinct and domesticated animals.  

- A lot of thought has been put into how the people of the setting view these creatures, especially the extinct animals and dinosaurs. I like the turtle-like Ankylosaurs and I've always been partial to killer shrews.

- I'd highly recommend reading through Janet's other posts on their Kith and Kin setting. 

'Loot the Body' Tables as Cultural Worldbuilding by Beneath Foreign Planets

- In which I try to tease out an insight into several fantasy groups of human's material cultures via stuff you find in their pockets after you've (probably) murdered them.   

- Hundreds of items.

- A nifty idea and fun to replicate for your own settings.

'Loot the Body' Tables as Cultural Worldbuilding

A High Wennish woodcut depicting an Ald among Old Wenfolk

A looted item is a question. 

"What is this for? Why did this person have this? How did they acquire it?" 

Players will naturally think these questions upon discovering an item. So, items are an effective tool in getting your players to naturally engage with a world and formulate their own opinions and theories about it. This is always preferred to walls of text, exposition or nondiegetic DM authorial asides. Because of this I have created some  lists for what can be found in the pockets of four different cultures of people that can be found in a region of the otherwise unnamed; Beneath Foreign Planets setting called The Querns. The theory is this; by creating thought-out, culturally specific what's in my pocket? or 'I loot the body' tables, players will become more familiar with the material culture of each group of people and, to some extent, employ anthropological thinking about that culture. To enforce that feeling I won't be telling you anything about the cultures presented in the lists.

GET THE LISTS HERE

Books, pamphlets, letters and the like can provide local, regional or world rumours. Maps provide hooks. Cult paraphernalia can lead to dungeons and conspiracies. 

The tables can be used as with a d6 and a d20 or with a d120 (which is done using a d12 and a d10) or by asking players to all separately roll a d20 and assigning each player to one of the sub-tables. This last method is the most useful when the party is doing mass looting. Roll as many d20s as corpses being looted and cycle through the tables, one after another, one die at a time. The tables are useful for staring items and pickpocketing also.

Anthropology and Archaeology; A Blog Carnival Call-to-Arms!

Moulid el-Nabi

This September I will be hosting the RPG Blog Carnival. The premise is simple; create a piece of RPG content by September 30th 2023, link it in the comments below and then at the end of the month I'll curate a spotlight post; linking to your site and writing about your content. As September's host, I have chosen the theme 'Anthropology and Archaeology'. Let's refresh our definitions via Merriam-Webster:

Anthropology:

    - The science of human beings, especially; The study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture.

Archaeology:
    - The scientific study of material remains (such as tools, pottery, jewelry, stone walls, and monuments) of past human life and activities.

'Anthropology and Archaeology' is a broad theme; effectively encapsulating the entirety of human experience. It is a perfect theme for world-building, easily links into whatever you are currently working on and most importantly, it might prompt you to think like a anthropologist or archaeologist - thinking about the 'why?' and the 'how?' and the 'what would that mean?' of your setting and everything in it. Doing so will take your thinking up a notch and will ultimately lead to a more engaging, considered and verisimilitudinous world (even with the most gonzo of settings).  

Wilhelm Kuhnert

Questions and Prompts:

Here are some potential topics to get you thinking before September begins:

• What might player-characters find it they just start digging? 
• How academic are you feeling? Write a short ethnography of a people and their practices from your world.
• Could a character's starting equipment be culturally specific? Surely, different cultures in your setting have potentially very different equipment lists for your players to paw through? 
• What archaeological periods exist in your setting and what sort of items would an archaeologist (or dungeoneer) find for each of those periods?
• Could culture result in character class differentiation? For example, how might a magic-user from the Fungal-Id culture differ to their counterpart from the Industrious and Munificent city of Hsan?
• Could you create mechanics that support or incentivize players to have their characters act according to their cultural or religious beliefs?
• Could you replace race-as-class with culture-as-class? If so what would those cultures be like?
• What adventure or adventure hooks might be given by an anthropologist or archaeologist in your world?
• 'The Archaeology of Magic' just sounds cool, right?
• Get meta and promulgate a variety of in-game worldviews and theories by writing a list and summaries of setting-specific anthropological books and treatises that your player-characters can find and read.
• There are a host of generators you could create - a ruin or archaeological dig-site generator, a broad-strokes culture generator, archaeological artifact generators, clothing, taboos, religious customs, food, ceremonies, rites or special days/events generators.
• Even in very small countries, one community's culture will differ from another's - what local or regional differences can be observed in a section of your world and why do/did those differences occur? 
• Could you make a mini-game or mechanic for a cultural event, rite, festivity or ceremony to engage your players with?
• How do different cultures grapple with fantastic concepts such as the existence of cosmic Law, Chaos and Neutrality?
• Flesh out a culture from your game, there are so many different avenues to do this - etiquette and taboos, special days or events, clothing, food culture, religious beliefs and customs,
• Create cultural treasure or 'loot the body' tables (this is what I will be doing)
• Could a micro-setting be created around a particular social theory, so a purely functionalist, structuralist, materialist, marxist or even a social-evolutionist world?
• Furthermore, could you create mechanics that incentivize players acting in ways that conform with your chosen social theory?
• Acculturation is when cultures assimilate. Are there places in your world where two very different cultures have begun to fuse? What conflicts would result from this process and what might the new culture be like?
• How has a beast, fantastic species, divine intervention, curse or magical material affected the development of the people who live with it?
• What would Durkheim say about your dwarves? Franz Boas about your Bugbears?
• How would the culture of non-humans logically work? If you think about it, Elves would be very strange indeed. How do reciprocity and kinship work among aboleths? 

Your contributions are eagerly awaited and, thank you in advance for engaging in the RPG Blog Carnival.

The RPG Blog Carnival has been running since 2008 and helped to foster community and interconnectedness in RPG blogs. Recently however, participation has become a little light so I am hoping to get more to jump aboard for this September and to share and discover each other's blogs. November and December of this year currently have no host if you are interested.