Dark Age

Main Page » Development » Dark Age

Part of a series on Development

Communities
Thorp · Village · Town · City
Technology
Dark Age · Medieval · Renaissance
Material Culture
Natural Materials · Iron · Bronze · Steel
Economics
Quality · Specialization · Weapon Production · Guild

Dark Ages is a term to approximate the level of technological, organizational, productive and social complexity of a society. The Vos, goblins, and gnolls are best described as dark ages cultures.
Dark ages technology is roughly similar to the technology available in Europe between 500 AD and 1000 AD. Producing medieval goods would increase craft DCs by +5 and Renaissance by +10. But further, new technology often involves new tools. Consider crafting an astrolabe. A craftsmen needs to know how it works, why it works, and have the tools specialized to make it. To get good at this task, you need to do it repeatedly.
Dark age organizations are typically tribal with limited formal offices to assist tribal chiefs and great chiefs of chiefs.
Dark ages productivity from the land is approximately half of Renaissance level productivity. This results in lower population for a given province.
Most of the dark ages cultures live in close proximity to much more sophisticated Renaissance cultures. This means that dark age cultures often imitate the forms the more advanced societies without necessarily becoming any more advanced.