Dungeons and Dragons is traditionally set in a world with superficial similarities to the world of Medieval Europe. However, it is common and popular to create campaign nations or worlds with cultural and technological similarities to other cultures, such as Feudal Japan, China, or the Levant during the Crusades. Other, less common adaptations include a world with technological similarity to the Enlightenment period, the distant future, or a dystopian present. Some settings mirror the Classical age of Rome and Greece.
Each of these adaptations poses unique challenges and joys: change in terminology, behavior, enemies, and politics that can be difficult to implement systemically. However, the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons is well built to accommodate modification and experimentation, with Oriental and Arabian campaigns being fairly easy to create and mainstream in culture.
Some adaptations are not as easily made as others. Among the hardest is a true adaptation to the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age is a term used to denote the period in history when Bronze was the predominant metal in use for tools and succeeds the earlier “stone ages”. Like all sweeping categorizations, the Bronze Age is a loose term: for example, the ancient Egyptians, perhaps the best known Bronze Age people, often used copper and in the early days of the empire most soldiers would have carried nothing more than a cowhide shield, stone mace, and flint spear; with Bronze never reaching the level of prominence that it would in Mycenaean Greece, which was a hub of Bronze Age arms manufacture. Europe, the continent on whose Medieval culture much of D&D is based, had few great nations, and notwithstanding achievements such as Stonehenge, only the 'Grecosphere' was truly a civilization. Organized, hierarchical states were at this time still clearly clustered around Mesopotamia, the location of the first known civilizations, and the Middle and Near East are generally the center of life and activity from this point. Even more ferociously than in Europe in the Middle Ages, nations and cities raged against each other for dominance of habitable land in a region surrounded by deserts.
The Bronze Age gave civilization some of the most enduring stories that shape our lives. The Iliad and Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Book of Exodus all tell stories about events or ideas that came about during the Bronze Age. The Iliad, Odyssey, and Exodus relate to the fiery and mysterious end of the “Late Bronze Age” between 1200 and 1100 before the common era. The native civilization of Crete is called the “Minoan” civilization in honor of the story of King Minos, a mythological Cretan king whose son the Minotaur was fed virgin sacrifices in Minos' Labyrinth until a brave hero vanquished the beast. The Minoans in real life profoundly influenced the art and culture of the final inhabitants of Bronze Age Greece, the Mycenaeans, who worshiped the same gods and spoke more or less the same language as the Classical Greeks that would succeed them.
Adapting this complicated time into a roleplaying game is difficult. Technological changes, cultural differences, and the difficulty of combining the truth about the Bronze Age with the myths about it (and the myths about if from the myths created during it). A strictly historical game is probably impossible to anyone not possessing a Ph.D in Archeology, large amounts of patience, and unlimited free time. This is not the purpose of this guide, however, as D&D is not a strictly historical game; indeed, D&D is littered with historical mismatches and inaccuracies and is fundamentally and wonderfully a fantasy. However, the truth about the Bronze Age can still provide a useful base for adaptation. Add to this the many legends and myths that are associated with this time and the fantasy and artistic license of the D&D game itself and it is possible to create a D&D game with Bronze Age themes, feel, and items.
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