Social Structure after the breakup of Empire

[Mith]

Hi,

I am planning out some world building for a home brew setting, and I am trying to figure out what a realistic state of affairs for civilization would be after the breakup of an Empire. In this setting, my current idea is that a long standing Empire (I am thinking at about 1500 years in total expansion, maybe about 400 years at it's greatest expanse) falls to the hubris of the Emperor who thought that since the Imperial capital was the center of the world (which is roughly true) and he is of divine descent (which is also true) then he should control not just the roads that traverse the Material Plane, but all the Planes, and he tried to take over Sigil to restore the glory to a decaying Empire.

Needless to say, that did not go well for him or his supporters, and this resulted in formation of an immediate power vacuum that resulted in the Empire collapsing, and Outlander Nomads moving in.

Now my question is, in roughly 300 years later, does it seem reasonable for most of the territories that were under Empire control to be more or less at the city state level, maybe slightly larger? And while merchants will exist, trade will be on a small scale, but nothing that really accommodates the acquisition of exotic goods?

I am not finding information that gives a very clear (to me) picture of what the political landscape was throughout Europe after the collapse of Western Rome, for example. I believe that the most common political structure was small communities, with very few political states controlling multiple cities, and trade being mostly non-existent on a large scale.

(Hopefully this question makes sense as written. Let me know if you need clarification)

[kraftcheese]

To me the situation you've described would make sense, but I suppose it depends on how the outlying parts of the empire felt about being in the imperial fold.

Do they benefit from trading/allegiances with the other cities? I'm assuming they do and that they would at least try and keep some of their connections going: maybe on a smaller scale/depending on how close they are, whether the "barbarians" make travel dangerous.

Also, its always been easier to conduct large amounts of trade via water travel, and Mediterranean trade has existed regardless of the rise and fall of empires for thousands of years; so theres gonna be more trading between any cities on the sea absolutely (but there will undoubtably be pirate problems...)

From what I've read, most of Britain and Western European society outside the Mediterranean fell into a squabbling mess, with invasions of the Vikings in England and a bunch of different cultural groups vying for control of France and Germany: there was a Gothic Kingdom for about 60 years in Italy after Rome was sacked that controlled Italy and parts of Germany, France, Romania and quite a bit of the Balkans under a unified nation and kept up some Roman practice s but yeah, things kinda become more decentralised after that.

I guess remember that Paris, London, Cologne, Beirut, a heap of important cities were established or maintained as Roman colonies, and would have kept SOME influences of the Empire, in that not all knowledge and progress was lost with the Fall.

[avr]

In Europe's Dark Ages there wasn't a lot of real magic. I don't think that's too controversial. If your base system is something D&Dish, the ability to send messages or people cross-country fast should make it easier for larger states to exist or for luxuries to be traded.

The outlanders probably brought some useful new stuff to the Empire. In history that was an improved harness and livestock breeds. In your D&D world that might also include new kinds of magic.

[Tzi]

Hi,

I am planning out some world building for a home brew setting, and I am trying to figure out what a realistic state of affairs for civilization would be after the breakup of an Empire. In this setting, my current idea is that a long standing Empire (I am thinking at about 1500 years in total expansion, maybe about 400 years at it's greatest expanse) falls to the hubris of the Emperor who thought that since the Imperial capital was the center of the world (which is roughly true) and he is of divine descent (which is also true) then he should control not just the roads that traverse the Material Plane, but all the Planes, and he tried to take over Sigil to restore the glory to a decaying Empire.

Needless to say, that did not go well for him or his supporters, and this resulted in formation of an immediate power vacuum that resulted in the Empire collapsing, and Outlander Nomads moving in.

Now my question is, in roughly 300 years later, does it seem reasonable for most of the territories that were under Empire control to be more or less at the city state level, maybe slightly larger? And while merchants will exist, trade will be on a small scale, but nothing that really accommodates the acquisition of exotic goods?

I am not finding information that gives a very clear (to me) picture of what the political landscape was throughout Europe after the collapse of Western Rome, for example. I believe that the most common political structure was small communities, with very few political states controlling multiple cities, and trade being mostly non-existent on a large scale.

(Hopefully this question makes sense as written. Let me know if you need clarification)

Much of the Chaos of the post Roman Empire was less to do with the lack of a Rome and more to do with the emergence of the Germanic tribes who mass migrated into western Europe.

[Hoosigander]

I am not finding information that gives a very clear (to me) picture of what the political landscape was throughout Europe after the collapse of Western Rome, for example. I believe that the most common political structure was small communities, with very few political states controlling multiple cities, and trade being mostly non-existent on a large scale.
)

Warning: Late Antique nerdery incoming.

If you wanted to model the fall of an empire based on the Western Roman one, there would be fragmentation to be sure, but the fragmentation would proceed at least partially along lines inherent in the old imperial system. The people of middling authority in the old system like regional governors and generals of field armies would be best suited to carve out their own kingdoms. In constructing their new states they would take advantage of old structures that are ready-made and available to use, so old province boundaries and ways of collecting taxes would provide the basis to the new system.

Of course, there were also changes that made old ways less suited to present realities. To take an example the Roman Empire was very centered on cities and it was the curiales of the cities who were responsible for collecting the taxes of the surrounding district as well as a host of other duties that could be financially burdensome (Curiales were drawn from well to do merchants and businessmen and in the late Empire the issue of people trying to shirk service as curiales was a perennial problem.) One of the things that marks the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle ages was a shift in population to a much more rural society, therefore the whole structure of Roman administration that was predicated on a society dominated by regional Urban centers went away. It is worth noting that the smallest rural unit of territorial division, the pagus, remained in use through the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, even as other aspects of Imperial Administration bit the dust. This is a gross simplification and a whole bunch of things were also going on that affected the broader picture.

[Mith]

Thanks for the responses! I take these into account, and I think this would be an interesting way to introduce Draconic Sorcerers into the setting history, as I have Dragons being a distant and generally isolationist culture.

[Tiktakkat]

I am not finding information that gives a very clear (to me) picture of what the political landscape was throughout Europe after the collapse of Western Rome, for example. I believe that the most common political structure was small communities, with very few political states controlling multiple cities, and trade being mostly non-existent on a large scale.

Basically, almost the exact opposite.

At the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, there were fully established states in virtually all of the territory it had controlled:
most of Spain and Southern France were the Kingdom of the Visigoths
the NE corner of Spain was the Kingdom of the Suebi
northern France was the Kingdom of the Franks
Italy was the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths
between France and Italy was the Kingdom of the Burgundians
Africa as far as the middle of Libya was the Kingdom of the Vandals
the only truly disorganized portion of the old Western Empire was England, which was in the process of collapsing under invasion by the Irish and Angles, Saxons, and Jutes
All of these kingdoms were Christian, though the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Vandals were Arians rather than Catholics.
While overall political control was considerably lower, all of these were more collections of barons under kings with varying degrees of control, there was still significant trade, and other than civil wars a fair degree of internal stability.
For the most part, the "barbarians" that "conquered" the Western Roman Empire didn't destroy what they overran, they just usurped rulership of various chunks until the last one simply didn't bother to name another puppet emperor.
Probably more destructive was that the Roman Warm Period had ended, and the resultant crop failures combined with the wars to reduce population by around 2/3rds.

300 years later, around 776 AD, the scene was a bit different:
all of the previous kingdoms except for the Franks were gone, conquered or evolved
southern Spain was the Caliphate of Grenada
northern Spain was the Kingdom of Leon
Africa was a bit of a mess under some successor states to the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate that I'd have to check out
northern Italy was being conquered by Charlemagne
central Italy was owned by the Pope due to the efforts of Charlemagne
southern Italy (including Sicily) was going back and forth between the Pope and Muslim invaders
France was the Carolingian Empire, which was annexing large swaths of Germany which had never been controlled by Rome
England had coalesced into the Heptarchy, which was currently under Mercian (Midlands) domination
Particularly with Charlemagne, there was considerable unification, though it was highly unstable due to inheritance traditions among the Franks. The same for England, though it suffered a severe interruption when the Vikings started carving chunks out of the British Isles.

While overall trade had suffered during this time, particularly with significant resources from Africa and the Middle East cut off by conquest, there was still enough for various fairs and even fair routes to become noteworthy. Likewise roads were safe enough and politics not so bad that rulers could leave their kingdoms for a few years to make pilgrimages to Rome.
It certainly wasn't an awesome time as Europe, but the climate was warming up to the Medieval Warm Period, and population was starting to recover, eventually surging until the Black Death would come with the Little Ice Age to crash the population again.

[Mith]

Thanks for the correction. Most of my knowledge of the impact of the fall of Rome is from the British Isles, so that is why I imagine things being a lot more chaotic.

[Tiktakkat]

Yes, that would certainly affect your view.
And it is quite true - for the British Isles.
That is a common thing with historical analysis - trying to figure out which element is the "standard outcome" and which are the outliers.

A lot of specifics of the collapse and recovery change as you move around Europe, so there are a lot of variations you can introduce using it as a model.
If you provide more details, I can try and provide more comparisons for you.
One that jumps out is that, as I noted, almost all of the Germanic peoples who established successor states were Christian or became Christian shortly after. (The Franks were one of the latest, but they still converted right around the time of the collapse.) If the nomads who move into your collapsed empire have a very different religion, that would significantly change things. You'd have to look more at the Mongol expansions into Russia and Persia for that.
Also as I touched on, the Germanic peoples really rather wanted to be Romans. That's why they all speak derivatives of Latin south of the Alps and west of the Rhine, rather than modern versions of Germanic languages as they do east of the Rhine and in England, and why they use a descendent of Roman Law on the continent but not in England. If your nomads don't want to inherit the empire but usurp it, again you will have a situation more akin to the Islamic expansion across Africa or the Mongols in Russia and Persia.
Those may seem like minor elements, but they have profound repercussions 300 years on.

[Mith]

I am being lazy in my world building in that I am using the European-Asia landmass as a basis for drawing up the map initially, since it makes it easier to ensure that geographical impacts on climate and what not makes sense (since it is the real world). I know I am a bit weird with that :smallgrin:. I will refer to general regions by actual names if you want to look at a map to visualize.

(Africa is there as well, but those cultures never ended up under Imperial control, and were mostly at a stalemate of each leaving the other alone).

Anyways, my current idea was that the Empire was a human power that grew out of what we would call the Arabian Peninsula, and expanded to control Europe to as far North as Finland (basically take a map of Europe-Asia, draw a rough line from the Northwestern point of Kazakhstan to the South Eastern border of Finland), west to the Iberian Peninsula, never gaining a foothold on the British Isles, and South East to control Iran.

The Orcs hold Northern Asia (Russia to the Pacific Coast, to as far South as Mongolia)

Dragons, Kolbolds and the like are mostly found South East, although you do find Dragons and small tribes of kolbolds in other areas. Dragonborn are mostly found in the heartland of the Dragon territory (China)

Goblins hold India as well as Northwest (Pakistan, Afghanistan)


Scandinavia is to the Dwarves, and the British Isles are Elvish.

When the Empire collapsed, you had minor invasions of Dwarves and Elves, who do not like humans overmuch at the time, but were for the most part focused inwards instead of expansion due to a variety of factors.

The majority of the invasion force would have been from Orcs in individual tribes seeking new lands and plunder, and Goblin leaders striking out to take old cities and establish new kingdoms, as well as some Dragons with kolbolds trying to carve out new territory away from the old hierarchy.

Considering that humans would not be helpless, I would say that there isn't a huge change in who the dominant races are in the regions away from the general borders, but I would expect that the pressure of invasions would cause perhaps ~100 years of uncertainty before the new boundaries are established as the current status quo. So I guess the predominant change in a scenario like this would be closer to the cultural exchange of the Crusades, rather then the collapse of Rome, since the "who's in charge' would not have changed significantly, but more of a cultural mingling.

[Tiktakkat]

I am being lazy in my world building in that I am using the European-Asia landmass as a basis for drawing up the map initially, since it makes it easier to ensure that geographical impacts on climate and what not makes sense (since it is the real world). I know I am a bit weird with that :smallgrin:. I will refer to general regions by actual names if you want to look at a map to visualize.

That . . . sounds really good, as do your descriptions - the regional references are perfect so I don't need a map.

Considering that humans would not be helpless, I would say that there isn't a huge change in who the dominant races are in the regions away from the general borders, but I would expect that the pressure of invasions would cause perhaps ~100 years of uncertainty before the new boundaries are established as the current status quo. So I guess the predominant change in a scenario like this would be closer to the cultural exchange of the Crusades, rather then the collapse of Rome, since the "who's in charge' would not have changed significantly, but more of a cultural mingling.

That would make it closer to say, The Crisis of the Third Century, when the various migrations began:
The Huns were pushing the Goths into their initial attacks on the Empire.
A resurgent Persia was stripping away client states in the Caucasus and threatening Syria.
"Proto-Vikings" were starting to raid Britain from the west while "Scots" (Irish Vikings) were attacking from the east (and ultimately claiming a large chunk of non-Roman Pictland (Scotland).)
Local usurpers and pretenders were everywhere, carving off chunks of the empire, lasting a decade or two, then either gaining the throne or getting assassinated and replaced.

While the Crisis passed, if it continued you would be in a situation to one of the major Chinese dynastic breakups, where multiple successor states emerged rather than just a new dynasty.

The Crusades would be a very useful model for the border areas, as they would somewhat resemble the crumbling Byzantine Empire, with Arabs, Turkic peoples, Mongol groups, and eventually the "Frankish" (who were heavily Angevin/Norman) showing up in the middle of things.

I'd say go with the Crusade-style city-state/barony set-up on the fringes, with much larger, but not-too stable successor claimants in the interior.
The successors would split their time between trying to seize the throne for themselves and making sure none of their bodyguards, advisors, or family members decided they would do a better job securing the imperial dignity for their local group.
In fact, that would put it rather close to some of the later Heptarchy conflicts in England, just on a much larger scale. Or to some of the family conflicts in the Merovingian and Carolingian succession.

Does that help?