So I've been reading, and thinking, and mostly picking threads out of ballads, and I have very nearly enough of a scenario to set up with, but at this point I'm stuck: era-wise I don't like Modern games at all, and the classic '20s setup doesn't 'fit' with any way I picture this playing out.

I'm kind of willing to work on a recent-historical setting - 1950s, 70s - if there's a high appetite for that, but I'd as lief set up further back. The mid-1700s are pretty good fun, but I could easily set up right back into the dark ages or scuttle over the 19th century threshold into the Regency, perhaps.

The setting is a very rural village nebulously somewhere southwest/south-central England (I'll make a county decision when I have more of a when to base regional variation around). The thing about Ancient Evil Incomprehensables is that they've been around awhile.

I'd like help deciding on an era here - or knowing if anyone is interested at all, since England is pretty saltless porridge compared to my usual offerings.

My impression is that rural English life is pretty continuous from the start of Enclosure in the mid-18th century until the Great War and its aftermath (including mass electronic communication--radio/television), say around 1950.

I'd be happy to play anywhere in that range.

Poldark is set in the late 18th century. That could serve as an interesting setup a d time period.

In fact, I believe the storyline in Poldark is that the estranged son of a mine owner returns to bring the mine back on line and rebuild his family name. Could be an interesting story around what’s in the mine and why it stopped producing.

It is indeed, though I was thinking more Somerset/Gloucestershire/Wiltshire, the soft cushy counties where Gaffer's notion of a relatively smooth industrial revolution and lack of press gang disruption is sort of true (and I can put my experience of briefly living in the area to use). It's a story about a village below a field and a wood, rather than a mine, but you're 100% right that such a setup would be prime CoC material.

So far it looks like we're at the ~1770s. Anyone up for 1770s? -or got more temporal suggestions, I'll take more suggestions, come along lads lasses and beans, let me ken your thoughts...

I was about to suggest the Restoration (1660s) as that was a great time to be in London and find strange cult amongst secret Cromwellian societies, but that's probably a bit too far back (and too urban) for the thing you seem to have in mind.

Having said that, the 1770s suit me just fine, sign me up.

I’ll back the suggestion of the 1770’s, though were I accepted to take part, I might need a little guidance on the prevailing English mannerisms of the period. That said, a rural game set during that time period does seem to be full of potential for all manner of hauntings and the dread of whatever might be lurking in the darkest corners of the neighboring forest.

The Wicker Man, the Green Man, the Cerne Abbas Giant (who was first recorded in this period), the Hollow Hills with the “doorway to another realm where the Fair Folk live” - I see lots of potential here. Enjoy!

1770s is the period of the American Revolution (not sure what the English call it: "That spot of bother with those ungrateful ruffians who didn't know their place"? This gives US players at least a popular culture idea of mannerisms and mores -- wigs, breeches, tricorn hats, snuff, etc.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:07, Thu 13 May 2021.

In the nineteenth century there was cholera.
In the eighteenth nobody much cared about the poor and land was being enclosed at a prestigious rate as a way to force peasants to move from the countryside to Birmingham, Manchester, London, Nottingham and Sheffield.  Thus the killer was poverty and starvation.
In the seventeenth there was the Civil War, the Witch hunts and on the continent the Spanish Inquisition and the Thirty Years War.  The killer was the devil and the English sweats.

If you're truly looking for folk based horror, I'd suggest the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries with the old world of feudalism and Catholicism falling to pieces as the weather grew cold and plague came in wave after wave (and the Swedish Army thought it was a mongol horde.)

@InQueli - as I said at the outset, the scenario is pretty much done save for temporally-dependent details. It's rural, well away from London, and as much as I appreciate A Field in England, Blood On Satan's Claw etc, a near Civil War or witch-hunt story is not the one I want to tell right now. I'm more of the "quiet places you know have been growing an eldritch rot beneath for centuries and someone, eventually, inevitably, has stuck their shovel in the wrong spot" type.

@Loughcrew - always happy to provide setting notes.

@Gaffer - They call it the Late Georgian Period - the Empire's army was doing a lot of fighting on the high seas and the continent rather than trying to keep some colony out of the hands of a bunch of plantation owners' sons. Kids learn about it as the era when armed robbery was a romantic occupation, anyone fancier than a farmhand had a stupid wig, and sugar became cheap at the price of literal and cultural genocide (and worse) enacted on both the Carribean islands and a massive swathe of West Africa. Period peasantry wouldn't really know or care about America save as one of many colonies in Foreign Parts, much like average Americans regard the US' Pacific colonies today.

Setting notes would be provided...honestly it sounds like giving any coarse sketch of the era to non-Europeans not already interested in the history here might result in people showing up with expectations of wearing a layercake and meeting Jack Sparrow, which...ehhh...folk are going to be disappointed if they want the theme park version and get people excited by the prospects of newfangled potatoes. Sorry, lace enthusiasts, I really am all about the potatoes.

@Alucin - ha! I had forgotten the Invisible Khans, but no...as previously stated, the thing is mostly outlined and it's an English village and I've no interest in touching the witch hunts or anything close to the Civil War, 1660s plague era included. Very lukewarm on the Tudor period in general, too - if I were going mediaeval, so to speak, I'd do so well before both the era where academics argue over where to put the 'early modern' marker and the setting likely to attract people who should go play ASoIaF instead. Seems general preferences are running to early modern, though, so that's likely where I'll go, too.

A game set in rural England during the Georgian period?

Ambitious sir, I applaud you and wish you joy of it.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:34, Fri 14 May 2021.

Sounds great to me!

@Anachronist - My thanks, though this is likely my least niche project to date. You remain welcome, should you get the time.

All right, looks like that's at least 3 players for the 1770s, I shall...drop a note here when I've set up, indeed.

That's very good of you. I will almost certainly submit a concept for consideration.

All right, it is 1:30 a.m. and my neighbour seems to have been moving furniture around with occasional use of a pogo stick for over an hour, but I think we can pack this thread up and say the game exists: link to another game

Fair notice that I have been fiendish busy of late and will likely remain so for a bit, but fear not! My policy for accepting RTJs is best fit rather than first in, and the pace will never be breakneck, so. Have at it!