Just sharing things from history that inspired the world of Avaria

Note that this has nothing to do with Avarian Lore!

Hey everyone!

I'm very passionate about history and worldbuilding, so as I had a little free time, I was just looking around online to find things that are historically accurate and would be the real life analog for various Avarian cultures that other people might enjoy, and maybe it'll help you with your roleplay too! As I only studied the Classical and Medieval Mediterranian and near Eastern world in detail, I'll restrict my post to those particular cultures since I don't want to post inaccurate information! So this would include the Classical and Medieval Roman world, the Parthian + Sassanid (Iranian/Persian) realms, and the various Caliphates. In game this would be the equivalent of the Ruveran and Kalentoi Empire, the Irzali Empire, and the Sirdabi Caliphate. But to be honest I just wanted to share things that aren't commonly represented in popular culture!

Without further ado, here goes! I'll probably add more things to this thread as I find them over time :) . Enjoy!

Visuals:

Unfortunately it's very hard to find visuals for a lot of things, since the Iranians were a heavily oral culture so a lot of their things aren't written down, and given the state of supression of local culture in Iran today there's not exactly a lot of archaeology going on in the region to find out more about it. Still, the existing surface ruins for some of their monuments allow us to guess pretty easily for those at least, though it's much harder to visualize stuff from their daily lives.

A reconstruction of the Arch of Ctesiphon as it may have appeared in the 6th cent. compared to... (youtube.com)

For the Medieval Romans though (commonly refered to as 'Byzantines', though this is an anachronistic term, they are simply Romans from the medieval era), we do have quite a lot of sources, so at least people can recreate what Constantinople, the real life mirror of Calentium, would look like! In our own world, Constantinople was probably the most developed city in the world during this time period for almost a thousand years in terms of things like sewers, water supply, amenities and defenses, because it was one of the few cities in the world that didn't get sacked during said time period, and was the capital of a superpower. Considering that both Constantinople and Alexandria was built using the same technologies and know how, this would mean that Oramzir (the Avarian equivalent to Alexandria) probably also looks quite similar in a lot of ways.

Constantinople Visuals

If you wanted to visualize St Loomis, the footage from the game 'Manor Lords' should be relatively realistic and well researched for the era! Yes... it looks like a bit of dump compared to the above, so you can imagine how snobby all our characters who come from Oramzir or other grand cities from Irzal would be, especially since in the Avarian timeline, Oramzir was not sacked during the Azadi conquest.

Manor Lords to help visualize St Loomis

Daylamite Warrior (Sassanid/Persian elite heavy infantry troops, shortly before the final conquest of the Sassanid Empire by the Rashidun Caliphate; for all those Irzali characters who are insurrectionists at heart!):

Daylamite Warrior

Music:

With music, it becomes much easier, as compositions from the era have survived! There are a lot of pieces here that aren't historical, but still captures the 'feel' of the era because it uses the same scales, instruments and musicology systems that have survived to this day!

The Lament of Farangis (Persian/Irzali music) (P.S This guy's channel is great, and he does a lot of research into making his music accurate to the themes of the era!):

The Lament of Farangis

Kassia's Hymns ('Byzantine' Roman/Elukoi music) Being religious music, these are some of the fully extant pieces that have survived through to modern times).

Kassia's Hymns

Hikanatoi (Greco-Roman/Elukoi themed semi-secular music, which I think would also happen to represent the cultural ideals well!)

Hikanatoi

Ceddin Deden - Ottoman military song (In our own history, the Ottoman Empire was the last Caliphate, and having conquered all the areas that formerly made up the previous Caliphates, they also adopted a lot of things like their musical traditions, though it was basically a fusion of Greek/Roman/Persian/Arab musical traditions; so I imagine this music style to be rather similar to Sirdabi military music too).

Ceddin Deden

In Numa's Time (Played with classical era Roman instruments, and composed using microtonality! This means it's completely separate from our modern musical traditions, and while it might have been odd even in that time period, it could still be possible, and I thought that it would be perfect for our fantasy Ruvenian Empire!)

In Numa's Time

Pirate Song in Latin (I had to pick this one because the lyrics were hilarious, and it seems like something that would be sung in a bawdy tavern in Ruvic)!

Pirates of the Mediterranean

Basically I just tried to pick things that doesn't mesh with what popular culture thinks represents these cultures, because as usual Hollywood makes things up! (Gregorian chants and Aladdin music does not represent anything from either the Medieval Roman, Persian or Arab world; rather it was just what 18th century composers from Western Europe thought those cultures would have sounded like)!

If you enjoyed the above, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Hopefully it'll inspire a story or two as well :) .

Just a quick note -- While the world of Avaria is very much inspired and flavored by real world history and cultures, it is its own unique universe with it its own unique history, and not all things from Earth history are equally applicable. So a very deep knowledge of Earth history can help but also sometimes hinder. For example, there is less Ottoman type influence in the Sirdabi Caliphate because it has never been conquered by nomadic Altaruleskan steppe warriors, Ensor is not-quite-entirely medieval England due to having significant Cateni and Yehani influence in addition to other unique strains, the Yehani themselves don't exactly correspond to either the Phoenicians or Jews they're partially flavored by, etc etc. So there's nothing wrong with sharing fun cultural stuff to inspire, just keep in mind that Avaria /= Earth. Thanks all!

Thanks for the info Mistsparrow! The information about Ensor being somewhat based on England with other influences is rather interesting to me, as due to the trade routes to the Sirdabi Caliphate I always imagined it as more like Castille or Aragon (Spain) in my mind!

For my part, I tried to use the logic behind the history rather than the actual events themselves to make things fit closer to Avaria! For instance, in Avaria, both Ruvic and Elukoi are in use in the Kalentoi Empire at the same time, while in our own world Greek became the sole dominant language of the Medieval Roman Empire, with Latin restricted to legal and military terms. So the more modern composition which uses both Greek and Latin lyrics in it just seems to fit Avaria more than the purely Greek hymns in my mind at least!

I know in this universe the Sirdabi caliphate also doesn't really have a mirror in our world either, due to its more peaceful rise. So in my head I try to match it up to other more relatively bloodless conquests in history that didn't have hundreds of years of rebellion first. One example would be the Kushite (classical era Ethopia) conquest of Egypt, where the conquerers wholesale adopted the culture of the conquered, but I discounted it because clearly Azadi culture is quite different from the original Elestaarian culture from Izral. Another example would Alexander's conquest of Achaemenid Persia, in which the subsequent Seleucid Empire fused together Persian and Greek culture to form something different, and though the Parthians did eventually rebel, I'll just discount that part. But the early part certainly seems to match how the Sirdabi Caliphate took power, especially with the peaceful integration of Oramzir, just like how Alexander got Egypt, who welcomed him with open arms due to their dislike of Persian rule. So I just imagine Azadi music has a lot more influence from Irzal in Avaria (and maybe slightly less influenced by Kalentoi music, though that would probably still have an effect too I imagine). In our own world the music of the earlier Caliphates were basically a fusion of Iranian and Roman music modes, which is usually how it goes when a nomadic culture conquers a long established sedentary culture. Ottoman music is played with neys and ouds (amongst other instruments; both are Iranian in origin, and I believe they are Irzali instruments in Avaria?), and is also heavily influenced mostly by Iranian and Roman music so I thought it would just be fitting in that way, especially due to their sophistication for the era (which I think matches the Sirdabi Caliphate!)

What I am really curious about as a player is how the lack of Mongol conquest (or even any sort of complete collapse and rebuilding, as happened in our world with the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abassid Caliphates) and subsequent extension of an Islamic Golden age into the 15th century would look like! Of course... I spot those Temulen riders in the timeline... :P . Another thing though that would completely alter the logic of things would be universal education in the Sirdabi Caliphate, something that no state could do until modern times, as any who tried it would be conquered due to the high cost and very slow return on investment. How could they even afford it, and how would that alter the culture (aside from making human life more valuable in Avaria)? D: (I suspect magic is involved... and I can't wait to find out if that's true or not haha.)

This thread is heavily conflating RL history with Avaria and I'm afraid it might end up being a little misleading for anyone who is trying to understand the game lore. Please try to avoid this; I understand that as a lover of world history it might be difficult to refrain from making too many comparisons, but especially through this stage of the game -- where much of the lore is undocumented, in alpha -- it's going to be better to avoid making a huge ton of analogies.

Also, the Islamic empire of yore did not have as bloody of a rise as many Western-influenced people may think. The siege of Jerusalem is one such example, where the city was surrendered sans bloodshed and it marked the end of Roman oppression of the Jewish population.

I can edit the post if you like to make it very clear that it has nothing to do with Avarian lore, but rather just getting the 'feel' of the culture!

As for the Islamic conquests, it was nothing special for the era, in that it was perfectly average. Cities that surrendered early without a fight were spared, and cities that did not surrender were sacked and many of its inhabitants enslaved (for instance, Alexandria in Egypt and Estakhr and many others in Iran). It was the same as say the Persian conquest of the Medes, or the Roman conquest of Britain, or even the Mongol conquest of China. Almost all conquests were bloody affairs, and the Islamic conquest was no different in that regard. Most of the sources that rage the most bitterly against the Islamic conquests are from Zororastrian exiles and the Sassanian elite (some having fled as far as China), as many were forced out of Iran due to persecution into India (where to this day the largest existing group of Zororastrians live still, though due to the opression by the modern Iranian regime a lot of younger Iranians have decided to convert back to Zororastrianism, but that's more of a modern political thing).

It's also in this time period that women who led armies became very common in the region (such as Apranik) as many of them were Sassanian nobles who waged a gurellia war against the Arab conquerers, and the region remained extremely unstable for at least two hundred years. In Egypt, the people there were far more accepting of foreign rule, having been under foreign rule since the Kushite conquest in the 1000s BCE. Still, it was Egyptian slaves who rebelled against Caliphate rule who were one of the most instrumental reasons why Constantinople survived the seige of 717–718. So in general, historical events show that those regions were chafing rather heavily under Arab rule.

As for the Jews, I wouldn't say Jews were 'freed from oppression' though at any point in history by a foreign culture barring the edict of Cyrus the Great, who offered them equal rights in every way when the classical era Persian Empire took control of Jerusalem. It just sucked to be a Jew in the classical or medieval era in any culture except Persian rule (fun fact, Cyrus the Great remains the only non Jewish messiah for the Jews), though some were better than others. For instance, if we take the Koran or the Hadiths as a primary source, Jewish tribes from the Arabian peninsula like the Banu Qaynuqa and the Banu Nadir were expelled from their homes during the initial conquest of Arabia. As for the Banu Qurayza, there's this specific line in a Hadith that says how "I was among the captives of Banu Qurayza. They (the Companions) examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair.Sunan Abu Dawood, 38:4390 ". The women were enslaved, which is sadly par for the course for pretty much every single culture in human history till the modern era.

Twenty years later, Caliph Umar expelled all Jews and Christians from Arabia proper as refugees, leaving behind only the Red Sea port of Jeddah as a 'quarantine zone' for Jews and Arab Christians. Still, for a Jew, from an objective standpoint it was better to be a second class citizen (Dhimmi), and pay an extra tax (Jizya) under the Pact of Umar in Jerusalem than it was to be blamed for everything that goes wrong like how it was in Western Europe. Jews in Constantinople also suffered from the same sort of second class citizen treatment, as while they were protected by Roman law technically, their word was considered inferior to a Christians for all legal cases (much like how a Jew's word would count for less than a Muslim's under Islamic rule), and were blocked from a great number of goverment professions, alongside other similar restrictions. So I would say it's more like a 'under new management' system than anything akin to liberation.

I will note that Jews did suffer less than Zororastrians under Islamic rule because Jews and Chrstians were still considered 'People of the Book', while Zororastrians were not, and their high priests were often subject to execution or humiliation. Sources from Iran say how the during payment of Jizya, Zororastrians would be humiliated by their rulers. This might explain why Iran was in open rebellion for so long as well, and why their Arab governers kept getting assassinated by Partisans.

I feel it's useful to emphasize here that Avaria is in the end a fantasy game. It is a historically flavored-and-inspired fantasy game, yes, but it's still operating within the realm of fantasy like most other MU*s. This means that it strives to create a flavor and atmosphere evocative of the places and time periods it roughly represents, but I've made no effort to make Avarian history and culture conform to real life in all ways.

Citing passages from works about specific incidents in real-world history isn't really going to help anyone understand the world of Avaria better. I have been inspired by history in creating the world of Avaria, but I have been inspired by a great many other things as well, from travelogues to personal experiences to natural history to other MU*s. Bringing in so many concrete details from Earth history is only muddying the waters and really isn't that relevant to Avaria.

The world of Avaria is in fact a little brighter, a little less violent, a little more optimistic than Earth history. While there's plenty of darkness and grittiness remaining, the MUD plays up some of the more positive (but very real) aspects of real-world cultures and histories while still leaving many failings and negative aspects for a realistically flawed world. There are many positive aspects of historical Middle Eastern/African culture to explore here, and I hope by playing in a different type of setting many people start to enjoy and appreciate these different cultures and settings. There are a huge number of negative and inaccurate ideas and stereotypes floating around about the Middle East and Africa especially, but also about other cultures that Westerners are less familiar with. Avaria is, again, not meant to be a game of historical fiction, but ideally playing in Avaria will help banish some small part of the negativity and ignorance that the real world doesn't need any more of.

Aside from that, it's really just meant to be fun. In the end, most MU*s are similarly history-flavored fantasy, with an emphasis more on being fun than perfectly historically accurate. History is great, but this is ultimately both fantasy and a game, and a very unique creation. In the end, I would frankly prefer to speak for myself on what the multifarious inspirations for Avaria are and what this world is like.

Thanks.

I do apologize, I often get a little sidetracked when answering specific points. If I could, I'd edit the title here to read something just like "Random rambles, musics and visuals". I'd like to add that I do really enjoy your world building, but perhaps my idea of fun is just to try and figure out how something is the way it is too! For sure you're 100% correct in that this setting is way underutilized in fiction and it would be nice to see more of it in fictional content! (For instance I think this game's Irzal is the first time I've seen anyone do a medieval Persian-ish analog anywhere, ever).