Eastep and I were chatting together and we considered possibly starting some type of Prehistoric RPG which takes place during the last great glacial period. I was wondering if anyone might be interested.

I don't really have a plan for a storyline, I was thinking more along the lines of a free-roaming "no plot" RPG involving Ice Age humans (semi-nomadic hunters & gatherers) in some form of early world setting like Beringia, or some mythical continent or landmass which no longer exists.

There will definately be a wide range of fauna and flora during the warmer summer months, and mostly thick ice sheets and snow during the winter when it's coldest. As a Prehistoric RPG there is no real timeset, but we're looking into an era between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago.

This is a realistic RPG, to an extent. There will probably be some mythical creatures and tribes, long since forgotten by today's archeology. It's pretty much "survivol of the fittest", if you will. There will be parastyle textual combat, with little to no restrictions. No metallurgy, this is strictly a Stone Age / Bone Age / Ice Age (pre-Bronze Age) RPG with mythological (para-fantasy) elements.

Here are some ideas of what "might" be included, which we'll discuss if we can get enough people to support the idea. We might throw in dragons, giant snow castles, unicorns, talking animals and things like that (I'm not sure yet), but right now we're focussing strictly on the facts. Here are some ideas:

Parasuchus was a 6-foot phytosaur (crocodile) which lived worldwide during the Triassic period, having a long thin snout like a garfish or baracuda.

Mixosaurus was a Triassic ichthyosaur about 3-foot-long and resembling a reptillian dolphin.

Ginkgos were huge late Triassic trees reaching over 164-feet-high, providing much shade with its fanlike leaves. Ginkgo trees survive today in Asian gardens.

Cylindroteuthis was a tiny Jurassic squid with a fan-finned cone-shell closely resembling more modern types of squid.

Libellulium is a Jurassic arthropod which differs little from the common dragonfly.

Kayentachelys was a giant Jurassic alligator snapping turtle.

Hybodus was a 6-foot Jurassic chondrichthyan resembling the great white shark.

Liopleurodon was a huge 30-foot sauropterygian which resembled a crocodile with four flippers. Liopleurodon was a plesiosaur which survived for 10-million years starting in the late Jurassic period.

Dakosaurus was the largest and fiercest member of the crocodylomorphs, 16-foot-long with a head like tyrannosaurus or veloca raptors, and a tail ending in a fin, with four webbed paddles for legs.

Archaeopteryx was the first feathered bird, about 1-foot-long during the Jurassic period.

Megazostrodons are placental ratlike mammals.
So are Sinoconodons which more closely resemble Jurassic ferrets.

Sequoia are Cretaceous connifers which survive to present in the form of redwood cypress trees, only Sequoias are over 230-feet-tall. They are the largest trees in the world, some dating over 2,000 years old. Sequoias in Canada and California reach up to 360-feet-high and 20-feet-around in diameter, with bark 12-inches-thick. They have needlelike leaves and spiraling trunks which shoot straight up.

Elasmosaurus is a 30-foot-long sauropterygian of the Cretaceous, being one of the largest and last plesiosaurs on the planet. Elasmosaurus had the longest neck of any plesiosaur and is perfect for identifying the Lochness monster.

Deinosuchus is a ten ton 40-foot-long Cretaceous crocodylomorph related to modern alligators.

Giganotosaurus was equal or larger than a tyrannosaurus, only it lived during the Cretaceous and had bony ridges along its snout, eye sockets, back and tail, more frightening in appearance than any tyrannosaur.

Euoplocephalus is one of the largest Cretaceous ankylosaurids, reaching 23-feet in length.

Deinonychus was a 10-foot-long early Cretaceous raptor which stood only 4-feet off the ground, but its feathered body could lunge 10-feet off the ground with enlarged raking claws on the second toe. Velociraptors were smaller but similar.

Ichthyornis is a Cretaceous seagull, while Vegavis is a Cretaceous duck or goose. Volaticotherium is a Cretaceous flying squirrel.

Titanoboa is a 43-foot-long giant lepidosaur (python), the largest land hunter of the Paleocene epoch (Cenozoic era) some 65-60 million years ago following the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Diatryma is a 7-foot-tall flightless hunting bird with a sharp hooked beak but no wings. They were round and fat, too slow to outrun their prey so instead they would ambush them in the forest. Diatryma had heads like vultures and bodies like an ostriche, living during the Eocene after the dinosaurs.

Andrewsarchus is a late Eocene predator 12-feet-long resembling a hybrid between a hyena and a bear-wolf. Andrewsarchus lived 40-million-years ago as the largest predatory land mammal that ever existed.

Uintatherium was a Eocene rhinocerus with canine tusks or sabertusks.

Andean condors are related to Argentavis, the largest flying bird that ever lived, with a 26-foot wingspan standing 10-feet off the ground, resembling a giant vulture. Argentavis lived during the Miocene epoch. Paraceratherium was a giant 26-foot-long hornless rhinosaurus reaching 18-feet off the ground, weighing 16 tons as the largest land mammal that ever lived.

Castoroides was a giant 8-foot-tall ice age beaver. Glyptodon was a giant 8-foot-long ice age armadillo. Canis Dirus was a 5-foot-long ice age dire wolf which lived during the late Pleistocene, about the same size as the modern gray wolf but much heavier. Smilodons were 6-foot-long sabertoothed tigers which lived during the Pleistocene, along with the 16-foot-tall Mammuthus or woolly mammoth. One dwarf mammoth survived on Wrangel Island near Alaska until 4,500 years ago. Coelodonta was the woolly rhino. Megaloceros was the Irish elk with enormous antlers reaching 11-feet-long from tip to tip. Gigantopithecus was a 10-foot-tall gorilla.

15,000 years ago humans reached the Bering Straight between Siberia and Alaska and crossed over the land bridge. Beringia during the last ice age would have been dry land, a vast plain with habitats similar to the European steppes. These early humans bypassed the huge icesheets by migrating south along the North American coast of California as recently as 12,000 years ago. They reached Monte Verde (Chile) at the coastal tip of South America by 15,000 years ago.

Homosapiens in Siberia developed the Diuktai tool culture, which probably inspired the early Clovis tool culture of North America about 12,000 years ago.

The last Ice Age reached its peak around 18,000 years ago. At that time, ice sheets covered most of Britain, Scandinavia, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and many smaller European mountain ranges. The rest of Europe, away from the Mediterranean, was covered by treeless tundra vegetation. The most common animal in these tundra regions was the reindeer, but red deer, aurochs, bison and horses were also present in smaller numbers. Humans during this period were largely confined to southwestern France, the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, and parts of central or eastern Europe away from the glaciers. The climate began to get warmer around 15,000 years ago before another period of cold set in 13,000 years ago. The end of the last Ice Age is put at 11,500 years ago, when temperatures reached their present levels. Not surprisingly, the result of this global warming was massive ecological change in the form of trees which spread north into the tundra. First the birch trees, then the pines, followed by hazel, oak, ash, lime and elm trees. Elk (moose) and wild boar migrated into the area, reaching Scandinavia where the reindeer can still be found today.

During the coldest peak of the Ice Age, so much water was landlocked in the form of glaciers that the sea level was more than 330 feet lower than it is today.

Flint blades were fixed to wooden or bone shafts, such as in the case of a bone spearhead, using resinous gum or sinew binding. Maglemose also hunted porpoises such as sperm whales during the winter, and probably used the oil from their blubber. They had bone fishhooks and may have domesticated the wolfdog.

The people who crossed the Beringia land bridge during the last glacial period and settled in the New World originated from the eastern Siberian hunter-gatherer communities that roamed the harsh tundras around the Aldan River valley. 18,000 to 12,000 years ago, the Dyukhtai tradition evolved there, but not all of these Siberians made their way northeast towards the Chukchi Peninsula and Alaska, some moved further south into more eastern Asian regions.

Their main food resources however came from marine life in the form of seals, whales, fish and water birds.

Overseas, the Hensbacka culture rose along the western coast of Sweden as far back as 9,000BC while the Fosna culture developed in Norway at the same time. These traditions hunted reindeer in the highlands. Their main food resources however came from marine life in the form of seals, whales, fish and water birds. In many ways, they were similar to the Paleoeskimo societies that spread across arctic areas of North America some 3,000 years later. The northern Scandinavians developed the Komsa culture as they penetrated the arctic circle in 6,000BC. Since these cultures did not have flint to work with, they made tools out of quartz and slate instead. Their arrowheads and spearheads looked similar to other cultures of the same time period.

The arctic culture known as Thule emerged from the Birnik culture in northern Alaska about 900AD, centered on the hunting of 40-ton bowhead whales whose rib bones were used to construct Thule pit houses. Thule culture spread to Canada, Greenland and Labrador by the fifteenth century. Thule hunters drove caribou between drift fences called "inuksuit", made from piles of rocks. Thules also hunted walrus and antlered reindeer. Thule bowstrings were made of sinew, and Thule sleds were drawn by four to six domestic dogs. Thule culture was replaced by the later Inuit (eskimo) culture in later times.

Again, these are just some ideas for right now. This roleplay will most likely take place either in Scandinavia or Beringia during the last great Ice Age, so if you're interested let us know. Anyone can join, there is no limit to the number of people who are allowed to participate. It's a completely freestyle, unmoderated, free-roaming RPG without any real storyline. Kill or be killed, fight to survive, face monsters, procreation for the survivol of your race, so on and so forth. Feel free to add in any other (or better) ideas if you have any.

Thanks.