I
was born and raised in the northeastern United States of America, and have
spent most of my life in this area of the country. My interest in the European Middle Ages
was sparked at the age of seven, when a university sabbatical took my family
to Paris, France and Lausanne, Switzerland for a year. To a child
accustomed to the plain churches of New England, the medieval European
cathedrals with their soaring lines, massive pillars, intricate stained
glass windows, and embellished facades, were awe-inspiring and endlessly
fascinating. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of my family's
visits to these towering ecclesiastical edifices. The year in Europe was
also marked by a virtual absence of television in my life. Deprived of my
usual source of entertainment, I turned to books, and by the time my family
left the continent, the experience had instilled in me a love of reading.
This passion ebbed in the years following but then surged again in university,
and has served me well in my research.
Four years after we returned to the U.S., I was introduced to fantasy roleplaying games. Throughout most of my teenage years and well into my twenties, my brother and I played together in semi-medieval heroic fantasy settings. As we matured, our campaigns and playing styles changed. This evolution was driven partly by a desire for a more realistic feel in our games, and partly by my experiences overseas as an adult. I have been fortunate enough to travel to Europe every few years, and each trip has fired my imagination and encouraged me to read up on the medieval period. The more I learned, the more dissatisfied I grew with heroic fantasy, but as this was a gradual process, I continued using my old campaign world.
All this changed a few years ago, when I had the opportunity to participate in a Hârn [1] roleplaying campaign for the first time. Hârn is a medieval European style fantasy milieu with much more emphasis on "medieval" than "fantasy" when compared with the games with which I was familiar. After a few sessions, I was hooked; here at last was a setting that satisfied my cravings. I devoured whatever source material I was allowed to see as a player, and began to realize what a rich and complex setting a realistic medieval environment could be for roleplaying. However, much as I loved playing a character in Hârn, it didn't feel like "my" world when it came to GMing. I tried to adapt my old campaign setting to feel more like medieval Europe, but found this to be an exercise in futility.
After a month or so of indecision, I decided to abandon my old campaign world and start over from scratch. My new roleplaying setting would be late twelfth century England, and I would attempt to incorporate into it as much of the reality [2] of that time and place as possible. I knew that a virtually limitless supply of source material awaited me at the local university library, and figured that it would take me only a few months to put together a satisfactory campaign. Little did I know that medieval England would ensnare me, that the pleasure of studying my chosen subject for its own sake would overwhelm any desire I had to expedite the process and get the game rolling.
In the nearly three years that have passed since I began my research, I have yet to play a single game using my setting. I don't consider this a loss, though; the experience has been thoroughly enjoyable and enriching. I am still as intent upon using twelfth century England as a roleplaying milieu as I was the day I started down this road, and with luck, I may even feel sufficiently prepared to do so soon ("soon" being a safely ambiguous word, of course). Regardless, it is my sincere hope that others will find the fruits of my labors of some interest or use.
2. Or more properly, various informed notions of what the reality of medieval England may have been.
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Copyright © 2002 Christopher Golden All Rights Reserved. Last modified 2-22-02 |