[@Willy Vereb] In terms of a specific time period, there is none, or at least none that would apply to a real world analogue. Some civilizations are evolved, while some are less evolved -- One nation is chucking people off pyramids, another has a history long enough that they've emigrated and shifted cultures. I figured saying that the world is in a medieval/renaissance period would be a general enough blanket statement for the kind of settings I'm looking for, but to reiterate, the world's technology is mostly on a medieval level. Some places can be a little further back and be smelting bronze weapons in thatch-roofed huts, others can be a little further ahead and boiling made-up chemicals in fancy test tubes. The hard limit is that there are no firearms because it's a personal preference of mine. If you [i]really[/i] want to use gunpowder, I could accept [url=http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o11/yhjow/thundercrashbomb.jpg]simple gunpowder bombs[/url] like the Mongolians used, but that's about it.