Past Life Brainstorming

[jeregenest]

More tantaene animis caelestibus irae thinking aloud.

Okay I have five lives the players will incarnate in. The first step for me is to just jot don the things I want to go do further research in. Feel free to suggest more.

India at the Time of the Aryan Invasion

• Ramayana and Mahabharata


• The Vimanas, spacecraft and extraordinary weapons referred to in the Indian epics.


• The Indian Emperor Ashoka and the "Secret Society of the Nine Unknown Men"


• Monkey King


• Tigers and Lions and Cobras, oh my!


• Aryans/Indo Europeans


• Theosophists?


• Profusion of Gods


• Naga


• Tantra

Hellenistic World c 262BC

• Birth of Alchemy


• 77(?) Cities of Alexander


• Manetho and Berossus


• 1st Punic War


• Alexander and that sacred serpent


• A world in flux


• Alexander’s sub

Mesoamerica sometime around 1200 AD

• Serpent Kings/Gods


• Gold


• Human sacrifice


• Chocolate


• Popul vuh


• Hallucinogens


• In with one epoch out with another


• Sky ships

China/Hong Kong around the First Opium War

• Death of Heavenly Mandate


• Drugs as pathway to transformation


• Fu Manchu


• Taoism


• Black Dragon


• Cultural Flux


• Monkey King

New York c 1937

• Media Culture


• Depression/The land is angry


• Upcoming World War II


• AntiCult campaign


• OTO/Birth of Wicca


• Nineveh in New York


• Baseball


• Comic Books

These lists aren’t comprehensive, don’t even know how many of these will actually play a part. And other things will certainly rear up as I do my research. And a lot depends on player input.

Comments

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

I'd throw in there the mesoamerican self mutilation rituals. Always good fun when dealing with those cultures.

[head58.livejournal.com]

So, you'e assuming for purposes of the game that the Aryan Invasion actually happened?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

explain please

[head58.livejournal.com]

I was looking for into on the period and the first half dozen or so sites I came across (google "aryan invasion" and "india") referred to the 'controversial" Aryan Invasion, or outright suggested it never realy happened but was dreamt up by some dusty old white guy linguist to explain how the Indians could have such a cool language without white folks giving it to them. The sites suggested there were no Aryans. A number of the sites I looked at were from INdian historians.

Wasn't sure if this was simply anticolonial reactionaryism or current historical theory/trend. I should probably ask garrity who does this sort of thing for a living.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I have a whole stack of recently written histories on the early eras of India waiting for me at the library to pick up tomorow so that may end up meaning some revisions there once I digest the info.

the epics

[dkoulomzin.livejournal.com]

I believe the epics are actually dated much later than what we originally thought (instead of 1500 BC, more like 1000BC for Ramayana, 450 BC for Mahabhourata). The good news is that there certainly are other primary sources from 1500 BC... but should we consider changing our time period?

Re: the epics

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

If I wanted to I could say 3200 BC, as thats when the Hindu calendar (forget the proper name) dates the epics. When the epics are written is unimportant really. Its what we want out of them that is.