What are cool unused historical empires to make fantasy

Indus River valley for the obligatory past civilization with ruins,powerful magic,forgotten tombs and ancient technology beyond comprehension

Italian(think Venice,genoa,Naples,etc)city-states for any major port city or coastal city-state

>>51364537
Poland-Lithuania is rarely used for some reason and I don't think I've ever seen fantasy Incas before

>>51364537
>how can I be a lazy hack while seeming like I'm being original?

Fuck you.

Mali, the Hittites, the Myceneans, the Phoenicians+Carthaginians, the Parthians.

And again, fuck you.

>>51364537
Israelites literally led by YHWH

>>51364967
Poland-Lithuania is underutilized for inspiration for such a robust civilization. The more recent centuries were not kind to them but they were doing pretty well for a long time.

>>51365970

They are boring half-breeds between nords and slavs. If you insist on doing them, at least pick some other Baltic country that doesn't care about "MUH JESUS" so much.

>>51365970
Poland's having a bit of a bounce back too,

>>51366089

You seem like someone very tiresome to know in person.

>>51364537
>Teddy Roosevelt

Wait, so he gets a bonus when fighting on his home continent, or fighting against the scourge known as National Parks?

>>51364967
There is a saying in swedish called "polsk riksdag"; it literally translates to "polish parliament" and refers to a group that constantly argues and is completely unable to reach a consensus.

It's an interesting setup for political stuff I can tell you that.

>>51366089
>A Baltic country that doesn't care bout 'MUH JESUS' so much

Friendly reminder that Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the majority of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by land area before unification) were the last European nation to convert to Christianity.

>>51366284
He gets a bonus on his home continent and a bonus to building national parks.

>>51364537
Romania led by Vlad Tepes.
Zulu led by Shaka whatshisname.
Ukraine led by Olga of Kiev.

>>51364537
>Russia in Europe and not in Asia
Disgusting

>>51366345
The important part of Russia is European.

>>51366332
>Ukraine led by Olga of Kiev
It wasn't Ukraine which isn't a real country. That was Kievan Rus.

>>51364537
>literal who rulers
why? what for?

>>51365718
>mali

Yes... reverse jews. Friendly rich folk that crash the entire elven and orcish economy by just giving away way too much gold to the needy.

>>51366308

But it did stuck pretty hard.

>>51366373
They've always been an empire with feet in both worlds, they literally began their Nation's history by throwing off the Yoke of the Golden Horde.
>>51366524
The best part is that he was like, 'Oh shit dog, i'm sorry!' and tried to buy it all back with Goods on the trap back from his Hajj.
>>51365970
My favorite period of their history was when the whole of the country was in essence a fucking army for Napoleon; they were trying to cross the river Seine and a bunch of polish Uhlans rushed ahead to try and get the enemy across the river first, they were swept away by the current and as they were sucked under were heard to cheer, "Viva la Revolution, Viva Poland, Viva Napoleon!"

>>51366655
What happened to them? Did they all drown or were they fished out or killed while they were in the river?

>>51364537
I strongly advice against doing 1:1 fantasy counterparts of real world empires no matter how obscure.

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>>51364537
Why not just make a *fantasy* empire? Seriously.

>>51364537
Holy roman empire led by Frederic barbarossa

>>51366655
>they literally began their Nation's history by throwing off the Yoke of the Golden Horde
I guess Spain is Africa/Middle East then?

>>51368029
Economically, yes

>>51368029
>foot in both worlds
Partly, yeah.

>>51364537
It's easier to count the used ones. I mean, even fucking Rome isn't used that often. And when was the last time you saw Alexander's empire, Achaemenid Persia, Assyria, Carthage, Byzantine Empire, Turkey or anything post-medieval at all? And this is pretty much a list of THE most important and famous empires in history.

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>>51364537
Rhodesia

Make a community of some kinda fantasy race that makes a nice territory even when its surrounded by orc clans or something and it far surpasses it technologically and socially.

>>51368429
>conflating anything that can be tangentially inferred to be any kind of nationalist bent with the purest waifu ever made

>>51368145
>>51368079
>>51366655
F
Please see me after class

>>51368683
You sound like a really tiresome person to be acquainted with.

>>51364537
China.

>>51370062
What are you talking about? Rat people are super common in fiction

The Mongol Horde's actual territory/administrative side
>Pretty much total religious freedom
>Fairly decentralized rule
>Local population is recruited to actually *run* things.
>The conquering warlords are fairly relaxed with their subjects and can be seen acting like dorky tourists with foreign cultures when they aren't committing brutality.
>The horrible "bringer of the end times" is a bit of a family man and scholar.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire
>Less an actual Nation and more the personal property and domains of a family
>At any one moment the barbaric horseman you're dealing with could reveal his lastname is Von (Something or Another)
>The 'public face' of the family is more or less their 'summer empire' so to speak
>"Oh yes, you met our Centaur cousins. A bit rough and tumble, I'll admit, but they're an absolute thrill at parties!"
>You seem to find these people in every single fucking kingdom
>They typically offer other family members' hands in marriage as rewards for completing great quests.

Sicilian Mafia Families as a kingdom
>Aristocrats used to have a fairly tight hold on all aspects of a relatively 'insignificant' country
>Hold the concept of a 'Vendetta' close to heart
>"Duels are for idiots and brutes, if a man wrongs you, do everything possible to *destroy* him in spirit and soul."
>Suddenly find their holdings in danger due to a powermad tyrant conquering their nation.
>Have to put aside decades of vendetta to free their country
>Place blood purity and filial piety as paramount importance.

Abassids, Umayyads, Timurids, Mughals, any of the Indochinese Nations, Manipur, the HRE, Novgorod, a lot of the Knightly Orders, Burgundy, Ethiopia.

And if those aren't good enough for you, just pick a region, pick a date, and figure something out from there.

>>51370315
>They typically offer other family members' hands in marriage as rewards for completing great quests.
I like this idea, where they keep marrying off their rivals to get them out of the way by creating problems for heroes to solve that necessitate such a reward.

>>51364537
Well, here's a list of all the civilizations I have acquired mods for in Civilization V.

NORTH AMERICA
Haiti, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Blackfoot, Cree, Dene, Inuit, Tlingit, Zapotec, Aninshinaabe, Calusa, Chinookan, Cherokee, Olmex, Sioux, Toltec, Buccaneers

SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina, Chile, Chimu, Caral, Mapuche, Gran Colombia, Nazca, Tupe

EUROPE
Switzerland, Belgium, Prussia, Sardinia-Piedmont, Scotland, Papal States

AFRICA
Benin, Kilwa, Kongo, Mali

ASIA
Australia, Philippines, Vietnam, Samoa, Canon Pirates

ANCIENT WORLD
Garamantes, Hittites, Israel, Dacians, Harappans, Xia, Akkad, Nubia, Minoa, Qin, Sea Peoples, Phoenicians, Sumer, Hyksos, Massagatae

This is above and beyond the standard Civilization V nations.

>>51370401
>Canon Pirates

*Canton Pirates, I mean. Under Ching Shih. D'oh.

Speaking of, I have the Buccaneers under Henry Morgan and the Canton Pirates under Ching Shih; I wish someone would make a Barbary States civ and a few other pirate civs so that I could have a big ol' priate game of Civilization V.

>>51364537

Classical Persia doesn't get enough airtime-- at least, not covered in a way that's distinctly persian. Ditto for the Phoenicians-- people are always talking about them but only rarely actually trying to use them as a direct inspiration.

The Dacians are another one that merits some more use than it sees. Or the Nubians, another kingdom that gave the Romans trouble (and only of the only major empires that the Romans never managed to defeat).

Great ZImbabwe is a another example... but I don't know if we really know enough about it to paint a clear enough picture of the empire that we could base anything fictional on it.

>>51364587

India definitely needs more coverage.

Italian city states is very nearly a cliche IMO. (The politics of the free cities in ASoIaF is an obvious example.)

>>51364537
Ethiopia. Churches carved down into the bedrock, the male relatives of the king kept in a gilded cage setup in a castle on top of a mountain to prevent them trying to seize power, all sorts of fun stuff.

>>51370553
The Sueloise (Greyhawk) were Persian, or, at least, PIE (Proto-Indo-European)

>>51370398
Could be, depending on the level of breeding, they have a "secret" cadet branch of the family that are all Dragons and/or powerful mages and other stereotypical "bad guys", one that a few especially influential family members trot out when they want to make their family rivals "disappear".

Could be the entire family knows about their "evil" kin, but keep them around (and well-funded) because they're politically useful, they never put their "good" family in any serious danger, and they'd lose a great deal of social status/value if it came out that they were breeding with "monster races".

>>51366523
>I don't know anything at all about history.
Seriously, you should have at least heard of at least a third of them, even if you're pathetically ignorant. Really, there's about a third of those who are pretty much the most famous dead person from that country. Gilgamesh isn't even a real person!

>>51366421
Spotted you, Boris

>>51366421
>That was Kievan Rus.
Neither is this a real country, it's an invention of XIXth century nationalist Ukrainian historians that the Soviets shoved down everyone's throats. This country has never been called that at any point in history. The name is simply Rus, or the Rus Land, which is how its people called it.

>>51370401
Switzerland, specifically Canton Bern, is a very interesting example of an extremely small, but an extremely multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire that expanded almost solely by conquest. A fair amount of cantons in today's Switzerland are split off parts of Bern that gradually seceded as the country was growing less oligarchic.

Even today, Switzerland is a country of three (technically four) rather different nations, most of which are also divided internally by religion and culture, which have much less contact with each other than you would think (next to none outside of the big cities). You'd think a country so incredibly heterogeneous is a natural candidate for falling apart, but the people are some of the most unabashedly nationalistic you would find anywhere in the world.

>>51366523
You must be absolutely historically illiterate.

>>51374573
Just like nobody called Byzantine Empire Byzantine Empire. These are conventions you dumbass, they help us historians easier understand what they're talking about.

>>51374717
>they help historians
Fix, I'm not a histiorian.

>>51374717
Rus is a neutral name, Kievan Rus is loaded. Hmm, what should I use as a neutral historian?

>>51364537
>Tumblr noses
Who thought this was a good idea?

>>51365908
Gnomes are already a fantasy staple.

>>51365718
Fuck off gatekeeper

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>>51374870
Makes people look like old alcoholics.

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>>51374802
>Kievan Rus
>The Rus people living in and around the town of Kiev
>Loaded

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>>51364537
The East Indian Trading Company

>>51375088
They lived in and around the town of Novgorod, and even there they weren't natives, as they came from Eastern Sweden. Kiev was merely a seat of power whose importance was constantly waxing and waning. For the most part, the state was not centralised at all, and the duke of Rostov couldn't give a fuck about the Duke of Kiev. Calling it Kievan Rus makes exactly as much sense as calling HRE Magdeburg Germany, i.e. zero.

>>51375247
Partial point awarded. Still it's used to disambiguate the state known as Kievan Rus from the many other principalities in the area which also lack historically accurate names

>>51364967
The cuotl of Rise of Legend are inca/azrec inspired

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>>51367600
This guy has the right idea.

You want something unique? Fucking make something unique. Basing it on real world cultures too much leaves you with shit > pic related

>>51364967
Witcher

>>51375698
It's really Germany with occasional Polish names.

>>51365908
IIRC, Israel was in Civilization: Call to Power, and their leader was David.

>>51367600
It's a different beast altogether. Fictional states explicitly based on real ones should not be compared with purely fictional ones, even though the latter often end up based at least partly on real world states, as it's extremely hard to completely eschew our frames of reference. They use different sets of tropes and appeal to different audiences. It's really like comparing the Old World to the Mortal Realms. Apples and oranges, really.

>>51375428
I think he meant just Incas, as they are quite different from Aztecs or Mayas. Yes, there are a lot of works where authors just think "oh there were those indian empires in latin america, with pyramids, human sacrifice and obsidian swords, who gives a fuck about their differences", it ends up being mostly Mayan and Aztec-ish. The cuotl have nothing from Incas as far as I know, the name itself sounds Aztec and the gods' names sounds Mayan.

>>51375755
>Developers are Polish
>Setting is just Germany with Polish names

lol ok

>>51377341
>Based on Polish fantasy books

>>51375755
That's what Medieval Poland essentially was.

>>51377387
Wrong. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a massive nation for its day(late middle ages). No such thing as 'Germany' even existed then. German states did not see themselves as part of some greater 'German' whole until centuries later.

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>>51377387
Not really.

>>51377341
Does anyone dress like this in the Witcher? The architecture is also decidedly not Polish with all the timber framing, which was a German style and only utilised by Germans in Poland (of whom there was a plenty)

>>51377341
Well, Poland is mostly made of either Eastern Germany with Polish names or Western Ukraine with Polish Names...

>>51377489
Should I remind you how the entirety of East Germany is historical Polish territory colonised by the Saxons? Let's just not go there.

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>>51364537
North Sea Empire.

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>>51368429
Make sure to include the father of the nation solely responsible for the settings version of the Boer Wars motivated by his own greed.

>>51364537
Assyrians. They enjoyed killing lions in their free time and enslaving/force-ably moving populations.

Pre-Colonization/Romanization Philippines. Tons of different tribes from all fucking over, along with mooselims winding up in the jungle and converting the southern half to Islam, with long-standing tribal grudges clashing against the new religion.

Vietnam, circa the rebellion against ancient China. Shit like dragons-on-fairies.

>>51366284
His home continent is the national park.

>>51366284
>Teddy Roosevelt
>fighting against the scourge known as National Parks
You might want to check whoever's feeding you memes, anon.

>>51370401
I'll do what this anon did. r8 my mod choices

THE AMERICAS
Cherokee, California, Confederate States, Deseret, Trinidad & Tobago

EUROPE
Bulgaria, Cornwall, Teutonic Order, Wallachia, Ireland, Denmark, Bohemia, Lithuania, SFR Yugoslavia, Thrace, Corsica

AFRICA
Benin, Numidia, Dahomey, Ptolemaic Egypt, Rhodesia

ASIA
Hittites, Umayyad dynasty, Seleucids,

>>51379331
How is California a country?

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>>51365908
That could be pretty cool. Have the setting be an Age-of-Mythology/Everworld-esque situation with several different cultures all led by their god/s.

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>>51364537
>Germany
>led by Barbarossa
This will never not trigger me

>except for that one time they got Ashoka, India always gets Gandhi

FFS, he wasn't even a head of state.

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>>51368429

>>51379367
It's not?

>>51379331
>cornwall
Leader: Jethro
Bonus: you play better when you play drunk

>>51364587

Wouldn't call the latter empires, and I am Italian. Tough it is interesting as an idea, because coastal republics were good as much as they didn't finish up in a signoria. If faithful to history, you shouldn't have 100 nobles to decide shit on their own.

>actually in GRRM they don't really do that either, but they give you that impression at first

Not totally empires but interesing:
Mayans
Garamantes

A fantasy setting based off the Brazilian empire would be interesting

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>>51379331
>Confederate States
Boring, go for American Union State instead

>>51379656
You acquire gold by asking the NPC's to gibe moni instead of actually doing quests.

>>51379446
They wanted someone new this time.

>>51379664
Did you your duty to the Kaiser today citizen?

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>>51364537
Good timeline Germany
>yfw you realize you live in the dark timeline
;_;

>>51379675
No you aquire gold by having slaves and planting and selling coffee

>>51368029
>spain and its clay (yes you too krauts, italians, greeks, dutch and austrians)
>not african araboid negroid
Lol.

I like the P-L stuff

>"European" upper tier with the lower rungs of society being steeped in old slavic/pagan traditions
>vast expanse of land full of dark forests/rivers/endless grassland
>winged hussars

>>51380704

Forgot

>Mordor to the south and the literal 'Empire' to the west

>>51380704
>there was also a Swedish-Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early 1600s

Would have been W H E W

>>51380747
>also
I meant ALMOST

double whew

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>>51380704
>winged hussars
Say no more

>>51379473
That really bugs me. India has had some pretty strong leaders throughout it's history. Ashoka, Akbar, Chandragupta.

>>51364537
>middle east is a continent

>>51380940
>Saladin as leader of Arabia
They just don't care

>>51370553
Tips for making it feel distinctly Achaemenid (I suppose you mean that by classic persian) and not just ancient middle eastern empire?

>>51380737
Move "Mordor" to the North and you've got Kislev.

>>51380737
>Mordor to the south
Come on, Hungary isn't THAT bad

>>51377430
It wasn't medieval at all.

>>51364537
Ottomans are criminally underused as a setting, and it doesn't get more interesting than steppe warriors that are trying to settle down while claiming to be the successors of Greek and Roman culture with Middle Eastern twist.

>>51379473
Gandhi is a meme and the game's mascot.

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>>51381116
They were very federal, basically if you paid your taxes and sent troops when the Persians asked, they'd let you do whatever. Consequently, their armies were very diverse, you could have Sakan axemen marching beside Ionian Hoplites.
Greco-Persian period they were apparently really good at sieges too.

The Persians themselves weren't allowed to travel by sea because it profaned the water, same for not burying or cremating their dead, because it'd profane the earth and fire respectively.
According to Herodotus the Persians had a custom where their chiefs would come up with plans by getting roaring drunk during the discussion and having the servants record what was said. When they were sober the next day the servants would then read the record back and they'd decide if any good ideas were said.

They also had the first postal system, with a sophisticated system of royal roads and waystations to provie lodging and fresh horses.
Everyone who was everyone in the Empire had a document entitling them to certain things at the waystations, with the bearers station determining how much they got. A middle-bureaucrat might be entitled to less wine than a nobleman's horse for example.

If you want more, I'd recommend pic related. The guy is very much a narrative historian, so take everything with a pinch of salt, but it's very readable.

>>51380808
Sweden's leader in Civ V was Gustavus Adolphus, but his appearance in-game was based entirely on a painting of Gustavus' uncle, Erik XIV. It's a big tragic.

>>51364537
any of the cultures linked through here(really though Central Asia in general is underused in Fantasy);

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

I think a more accurate Mongol Empire would be dope.

Usually you have not!Mongol Hordes in settings. But thy don't use an interesting part.

Mongols would add new people to their empires. Imagine an Orc empire with Elvish Archmages and Dwarvish engineers.


>>51381339

Well Ottoman's were kinda far from being steppe warriors. Seljuq were closer to that.

>>51382159
>Well Ottoman's were kinda far from being steppe warriors. Seljuq were closer to that.
Ottomans were still employing horse archer/steppe tactics and they were a mix of every relevant culture at the time which makes it quite interesting.

For example in an Ottoman setting you can make characters go to Anatolia and it would be a steppe warriors setting, make them go to western boundaries it will be a religious war setting, make them sailors and they will be trading with Venice or become Barbary pirates, let them stay in Constantinople for court schemes and plots in a Roman/Byzantine style court. What I'm saying is that it's very flexible and unique unlike Saracens which are more uniform.

>>51375654
Picture extremely unrelated.

>>51375787
So a small realm that gets conquered all the time by whoever has to march through to get to the real battle?

>>51375787
Weird seeing people who remember that game. God, I loved it.

>>51380704
P-L
>being the "Empire"
>get out- Empired
>Be extremely stable
>tear yourself apart and get split by your neighbours
>be tolerant as fuck
>turn batshit catholic

Fuckers never had some middle ground.

>>51364537
And accurated persian empire is always dope.
Can be Achimedean, Seleucid, Arsacid or Sassanid they are all cool as fuck.

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>>51383424
>Seleucid

>>51365718
>3 replies in
>people already bring up Hittiler
/tg/ pls, you're better than this