Ancient Empires

Praetors were Roman High Magistrates, and Atraxa is clearly named after Atraxerxes, King of the First Persian Empire. Is that a trend for all of the modern Phyrexians?

Historically Nanda empire, Mauriya empire, Gupta empire, Delhi sultanate and Mughal empire all at some point controlled most of the northern India. With southeast Asia right at the border, why didn't they expand to that direction? Cheers!

Fallen empires are a staple. They justify dungeons, treasures, and monsters being be strewn across the map. Several races and cultures in the present could be descended from the old powers.

I think it is important, however, for the setting to distinguish between several fallen empires, rather than lumping everything into "the ancients." It creates verisimilitude: the old world was not a monolith, but a patchwork. It vindicates history skills: by identifying the origin of architecture, an item, or a monster, a learned PC can anticipate what dangers and opportunities might lie ahead. Most importantly, it strikes a balance between variety and consistency: the PCs explore unique and memorable ruins, and gradually identify common threads between them.

D&D 4e's "points of light" setting has the fallen empires of Arkhosia (dragonborn), Bael Turath (tiefling), and Nerath (human). Eberron has many old ruins: the palaces of the Age of Demons, the military fortifications of the disciplined goblinoids of Dhakaan, the aberrant beachheads of the daelkyr, the cities of Xen'drik's old giant empire, and more.

My favorite implementation comes from Godbound. The world-upheaving Shattering transpired during a war between three great powers:

• The Din were talented with cold, hard artifice. Their ruins and relics superficially resemble sleek sci-fi devices. They left behind myriad magitech arms, armor, constructs, vehicles, and other engines.

• The Akeh, also known as the Polyarchy of Kham, specialized in genetic engineering. Many races and monsters, including all fae, were born in Khamite vats. They also exalted transhuman excellence in body and mind, and crafted many gadgets to directly enhance such.

• The Ren wielded bizarre and esoteric magic of minds, hiveminds, duties, oaths, laws, social customs and rituals, philosophies, and enlightenment. When PCs encounter psychic phenomena in the present, its provenance is likely Ren.

(Godbound also does the fantasy counterpart culture gimmick. The Din take visual inspiration from European cultures, spanning everything from Scandinavia to Russia. The Akeh seem to be inspired by Ethiopia, Rome after Catholicism but before its split, Egypt, and Western Asia. The Ren have the aesthetics of China, Mongolia, Tibet, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It makes for good visual references, particularly if the GM can show off pictures of real-world ruins that fit the overall look.)

One frequent conceit is the idea of a war between the great powers that culminated in some magical catastrophe. The Twin Cataclysms hit the Baklunish and the Suloise in Greyhawk. An unnamed disaster struck Arkhosia and Bael Turath in D&D 4e's "points of light." The Mourning devastated the nation of Cyre during the Last War in Eberron. The Shattering ruined the societies and advancements of the Din, the Akeh, and the Ren in Godbound.

How do you prefer to distinguish fallen empires?

So I read the bitcoin standard by saifedean ammous. While it had some focus on ancient money, it has a lot of focus on current money.

In a podcast I was listening to people were describing stuff like how the Egyptians used gold as money, the gold/silver ratio back in their days and gold versus their central currency ratios in Ancient Rome and Egypt.

Does anybody have any historical books on money they found interesting and would recommend? I liked saifedean ammous books but I don’t know I’d continue to read more about bitcoin as I’d prefer to focus more on history now.

I would also like documentaries or YouTube series if you have that but don’t have a book

Could ancient empires like Rome, Persia, Assyria ect be considered colonizers, does the definition of colonialism fit with what ancient empires where and did. If not then what is the major difference between ancient empires and recent colonial empires?

Fallen empires are a staple. They justify dungeons, treasures, and monsters being be strewn across the map. Several races and cultures in the present could be descended from the old powers.

I think it is important, however, for the setting to distinguish between several fallen empires, rather than lumping everything into "the ancients." It creates verisimilitude: the old world was not a monolith, but a patchwork. It vindicates history skills: by identifying the origin of architecture, an item, or a monster, a learned PC can anticipate what dangers and opportunities might lie ahead. Most importantly, it strikes a balance between variety and consistency: the PCs explore unique and memorable ruins, and gradually identify common threads between them.

D&D 4e's "points of light" setting has the fallen empires of Arkhosia (dragonborn), Bael Turath (tiefling), and Nerath (human). Eberron has many old ruins: the palaces of the Age of Demons, the military fortifications of the disciplined goblinoids of Dhakaan, the aberrant beachheads of the daelkyr, the cities of Xen'drik's old giant empire, and more.

My favorite implementation comes from Godbound. The world-upheaving Shattering transpired during a war between three great powers:

• The Din were talented with cold, hard artifice. Their ruins and relics superficially resemble sleek sci-fi devices. They left behind myriad magitech arms, armor, constructs, vehicles, and other engines.

• The Akeh, also known as the Polyarchy of Kham, specialized in genetic engineering. Many races and monsters, including all fae, were born in Khamite vats. They also exalted transhuman excellence in body and mind, and crafted many gadgets to directly enhance such.

• The Ren wielded bizarre and esoteric magic of minds, hiveminds, duties, oaths, laws, social customs and rituals, philosophies, and enlightenment. When PCs encounter psychic phenomena in the present, its provenance is likely Ren.

(Godbound also does the fantasy counterpart culture gimmick. The Din take visual inspiration from European cultures, spanning everything from Scandinavia to Russia. The Akeh seem to be inspired by Ethiopia, Rome after Catholicism but before its split, Egypt, and Western Asia. The Ren have the aesthetics of China, Mongolia, Tibet, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It makes for good visual references, particularly if the GM can show off pictures of real-world ruins that fit the overall look.)

One frequent conceit is the idea of a war between the great powers that culminated in some magical catastrophe. The Twin Cataclysms hit the Baklunish and the Suloise in Greyhawk. An unnamed disaster struck Arkhosia and Bael Turath in D&D 4e's "points of light." The Mourning devastated the nation of Cyre during the Last War in Eberron. The Shattering ruined the societies and advancements of the Din, the Akeh, and the Ren in Godbound.

How do you prefer to distinguish fallen empires?

What is really known about the timeline of all the precursors, fallen empires, and other ancients? I'm especially interested in when the different ancient empires were active relative to each other.

According to the wiki, precursors are even older than the Fallen Empires and Curators, though the source for this is not entirely clear to me. The story of the Yuht makes it clear that they never met any of the Fallen Empires, and it would seem a bit odd if the fallen empires in the height of their power did not interfere with the Zroni civil war; on the other hand I don't see any obvious inconsistencies that would result if the Cybrex existed concurrently with the young fallen empires (indeed, this might explain why the Keepers of Knowledge hate dangerous technology).

We do know that the gate-builders went away before the Curator Order became active on the galactic stage because the Curators will tell you that they have no idea what the deal is with the L-gates. There are also clues about the age of a couple of the fallen empires. The Master Archive of the Keepers of Knowledge is said to contain the collected knowledge of five "galactic ages" (which I presume last ~200 years like typical game of Stellaris), so it seems safe to assume they've been active for at least that long. The age of the Ancient Caretakers is hinted at by the fact that Central Processing has been destroyed so long that they get an overflow error when they try to tell you how many cycles it's been offline for - though if a cycle lasts for a fraction of a second, I guess that doesn't necessarily mean they're particularly old. On the other hand, if the star that Central Processing is built around turned into a black hole on its own, that suggests its been a while.

As for the stories of the ancient empires themselves, the stories of the precursors are obviously known, and the story of the gate builders is known in at least rough outline too, but I'm not entirely sure how much is known about the Curators or the Fallen Empires.

I know that one can find out what the Ancient Caretakers were there to guard against depending on the endgame crisis. And there's a bit to learn about the Militant Isolationists as well, as the general one can find on one of their shielded worlds says he saved his empire from its enemies but was sent away as a war criminal when it was time to negotiate peace (I suspect that he's the one who cracked the world 'Sister' in the Enigmatic Observers capital system, and also suspect that the loss of this world is one of the reasons the Enigmatic Observers went dormant).

From the archeological site, we know that the Holy Guardians are connected to a prophet named Zarqlan (though he isn't necessarily the only relevant figure - job descriptions indicate that their faith is also tied to the Shroud and other saints such as Kazargiel, Mazakudai, and Aznakha). The cracked world in their capital system named "The Mistake" suggests that at one point the Holy Guardians had an internal conflict of such vehemence they destroyed one of their own worlds.

Are there more hints about the stories of any of the ancient empires than these? Or does this about sum up everything that we know about them?