# Russia in the Middle Ages



## lwhitehead (Oct 7, 2014)

Hi I need to know what Russia and the other Slav nations were like in the Middle Ages, it's for my Orcs I'm making them Slav



LW


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## Elvenswordsman (Oct 7, 2014)

I'm sure you could get some great help if you had specific questions about them.

Arguably, if you want to look at cultures similar to Orcs in the middle ages, you should look at the Mongols.

If you want to look at cultures previous to that (I'd argue these are more applicable to Orc references) check out the Scythians, Huns, and other nomadic tribes that are based on large, unskilled armies; the Russian Cossacks in the Middle Ages were recognized as some of the greatest troops in their time - certainly not barbarians or Orcs.


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## lwhitehead (Oct 15, 2014)

I want to use Slavic nations and history for my Orc nations ok, I'm tried of Mogols being used in fantasy I want Heretics too the Human church. This will be part of the my Dark Lord setting and novel series.


LW


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## ppsage (Oct 15, 2014)

Well, I don't really understand what 'basing on' means in this context, and 'middle ages' is pretty indefinite historically, but Russian history in that general period has a lot to do with Monguls and getting killed by them. Also, Russian history is not entirely Slavic, the founders of Rus themselves (Varangians?) are probably Scandinavian. (This is a great story and might be what you want, although I'm not sure it's that fitting for Orcs, being mostly about commerce with the Byzantines.) The initial emergence of the Slavs is a very poorly understood part of the historical record, basically known only from archaeology, the Romans not being around anymore to make up a written record about them. Procopius has some stuff though, thought to be concerning Slavs. For Rus there's something called (I think) "The Basic Chronicle" which starts their written history in about the ninth century. Just looking it over, the Wikipedia article on Russia, and the ones linked to it for this period of history would seem to me to give more than adequate 'basis' for the sort of thing I'm guessing you want to do. Not sure why you don't head there first?


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## Elvenswordsman (Oct 15, 2014)

LW - perhaps you should consider not using the term "Orc" then, as it's already quite defined.

Hope you find what you're looking for,
Elven


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## ppsage (Oct 15, 2014)

Here is an interesting extract from the Primary Chronicle.


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