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+--- Thread: [GH] Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? (/showthread.php?tid=908)
[GH] Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - Havard - 09-10-2011
Unconfirmed rumour floating around the internet:
gloriousbattle Wrote:Quote:Even Gary's own Greyhawk campaign was set on fantasy Earth.
IIUC, there were a lot of historical parallels. The Great Kingdom was Czarist Russia, Furyondy was Valois France, etc.
Source: http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... hread=6241
Anyone else heard about this?
-Havard
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - aldarron - 09-10-2011
No, and geographically it doesn't make much sense. Czarist russia could be a kind of model for the Great Kingdom, but I really think, politics wise, it seems more like imperial china.
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - DungeonDevil - 09-12-2011
I kinda envision it like Imperial Rome, expanding outwards, establishing garrisons in remote, "barbarous" wilderness areas of Europe; limited trading with the "local tribespeople", and so forth. Or, by analogy with REH's Aquilonia, which was expanding westward into the Pictish Wilderness and northward into Cimmeria.
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - Havard - 09-12-2011
Aldarron Wrote:No, and geographically it doesn't make much sense. Czarist russia could be a kind of model for the Great Kingdom, but I really think, politics wise, it seems more like imperial china.
The only think I could see supporting this rumour is that Dave Ritchie uses various slavic and easter european names for places and individuals from the Thonian Empire. But again, perhaps any evil empire written about in the 1980s would bring associations to the Soviet Union?
DungeonDevil Wrote:I kinda envision it like Imperial Rome, expanding outwards, establishing garrisons in remote, "barbarous" wilderness areas of Europe; limited trading with the "local tribespeople", and so forth. Or, by analogy with REH's Aquilonia, which was expanding westward into the Pictish Wilderness and northward into Cimmeria.
Interesting. One thing I read on a wiki (I think) was that Gary had taken alot of inspiration for Greyhawk from British history with the various invasions leading up to 1066.
Another approach, which I have sometimes taken with Thonia is the Holy Roman Empire. For Greyhawk specifically, Charlemagne's Empire might also work, but I think this doesnt fit that well in the Blackmoor version where the Empire is so old and also more sinister.
-Havard
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - aldarron - 09-12-2011
Havard Wrote:Another approach, which I have sometimes taken with Thonia is the Holy Roman Empire. For Greyhawk specifically, Charlemagne's Empire might also work, but I think this doesnt fit that well in the Blackmoor version where the Empire is so old and also more sinister.
-Havard
Yeah Holy Roman empire is one I've thought of too. I think what I draw from the China analogy is mostly the idea of a great dynasty, imperial majesty, imperial city, and vast wealth. Rome kinda fits that but you don't get the same dynastic power kind of dynamic.
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - Havard - 09-19-2011
Aldarron Wrote:Yeah Holy Roman empire is one I've thought of too. I think what I draw from the China analogy is mostly the idea of a great dynasty, imperial majesty, imperial city, and vast wealth. Rome kinda fits that but you don't get the same dynastic power kind of dynamic.
Byzantium, maybe?
-Havard
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - aldarron - 09-21-2011
Havard Wrote:Aldarron Wrote:Yeah Holy Roman empire is one I've thought of too. I think what I draw from the China analogy is mostly the idea of a great dynasty, imperial majesty, imperial city, and vast wealth. Rome kinda fits that but you don't get the same dynastic power kind of dynamic.
Byzantium, maybe?
-Havard
Yeah, or maybe the Ottoman Empire too.
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - Combatmedic - 10-25-2011
Moscow is the Third Rome, and a fourth there shall not be!
Seriously, though, the Tsars saw themselves as inheritors of the East Roman Empire, and therefore, of Rome.
So did the Ottomans, to a lesser extent. Kaiser-i-Rum= Caesar of Rome.
Re: Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - Havard - 10-27-2011
Good point. The whole Russia thing, or even the Ottoman parallell are interesting given the slavic names used by many Thonians in the DA modules...
-Havard
Re: [GH] Great Kingdom as Czarist Russia? - ripvanwormer - 04-24-2013
The main connection that I see is that the Great Kingdom, in the Greyhawk setting, is ruled from a Malachite Throne, and the Winter Palace famously contains a Malachite Room.