Recomendation for good books on celtic society and/or laws?

[Tal]

Can anyone recomend a good book(s) for daily life of the celts or one that covers laws of the ancient celts? I'm not looking for overview books I have enough of them nor am I interested in New age stuff or books of a lot of speculation.
I did see an old two volume set on brehon law when I was in college I even took notes on it but have since lost the notes. Any help would be appreciated as it they are to be used on the Slaine campaign I am looking to run once the RQ version comes out.
I am also looking for a book that has diagrams of typical Celtic homes and village layouts. I have Gurps Celtic Myth that has some diagrams but am looking for something that has a little bit more in it.

 

[Standing-Stone]

Have you tried goggling?

 

[toothill man]

ospreys books have lots of pictures and also give lots of referance material and have been a huge help for many years i recomend

the picts
the celts(they are part of the enemies of rome series)
viking warriors(great for norse warriors)
will get series numbers later 8)

 

[Tal]

Toothill,
I already have the Celts book you mentioned. I'll look into the others.

Standing stone,
I have and have got some info. however I'm a little old fashioned and prefer a book to a computer screen or print outs.

 

[Standing-Stone]

I have a copy of the 'Cletic Age Roleplaying Game
rules based on the D20 system.

http://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Age-Role-Playing-Monsters-Roleplaying/dp/1932091041/ref=pd_sim_b_1_img/104-1756086-9532767

It's not bad read, and perhaps not the best source, but worth trying.

It goes from Celtic history to Celtic myth, covering Celtic life, society, their culture, customs, Worship, monsters.

It does dicscribe the dwelling they lived in, though there are no actual village diagrams.

I think you may have to improvise in that regard.

 

[toothill man]

the pictish warrior AD297-841(warrior 50)
is a good buy has plates including scathas school of war,a pict war boat and distroying romans at hadrians wall,
equipment is detailed and even have a plan of a broch I have used many times and examples of pictish poems 8)

romes enemies(2)gallic and british celts(men at arms 158) is also a brilliant book for slaine with plates including the best picture of a war chariot i have ever seen its german warriors have been used by me as mercinarys for some time

viking hersir(warrior series 3)
this is a beautiful source for north based warriors and plates include shields,training a sheild wall plus detailed picture of a viking fort the various sword pommels gave me the idea each settlement should have its own style of weapon as well as tartan

 

[toothill man]

will keep on publishing the sources I use hope others will add to the list as my home campain has always beem warrior dominated osprey is a good source as they dont like anything they dont have source for or if they do guess they tell you.

 

[Tal]

I looked around on the web and have decided to try two differant books. Cattle Lords and Clansmen is the first book and Pagan Cletic Ireland is the second book. They both sound like what I'm looking for, however both are on Ireland. Does anybody have either of these two? If you do would you recomend them or not?
I seen some others that I would like to have when I get the money.

As far as resources goes I'll post mine up too in case others are interested. Would it be best if we started a new thread? Could it be "stickied" if there was enough interest in it?

 

[kaiserjez]

I always thought this was one of the best celtic sourcebooks I read for RPG's;

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Celtic/

GURPS Vikings is also pretty darn good and could be used for Midgard campaigns.

edit; just re read your initial post and realised you have this already! Still it's a good book for any one else who hasn't got it!

 

[Tal]

Here is some of the resources I use:
(In no particular order)


Gurps Celtic Myth(Ken and Jo Walton)-Has plan of "typical" Dun and Hillfort. Short descriptions of just about anything you might want to know.

The Celts Conquerors of Ancient Europe(Chrisiane Eluere)- Very small sized book that is full color. Very good color pictures of celtic artifacts, has map of celtic gaul with celtic tribe names on the map. plans for gravesites, salt mine, drawing(not a plan) of an oppidum(fortified town). This is the book I use the most even though it is not very long. Also has short, page or less of every day life.

Mythic Ireland(Michael Dames)- a tad dry to read but has plans for graves, land features and is a good sorce for places where the celtic world and the other world meet. Good to steal adventure seeds from.

The Druids(Stuart Piggott)
Dry and hard to get through but has some planes of some "religious buildings", reconstructed shrine, very good painting of part of a celtic village/town.

The Celts(Nora Chadwick) good for post Roman Celts, has some everyday life info.

Encyclopedia of Faeries(katherine Briggs) exactly what it sounds like.

Pagan Shore is also a good resource.

Celtic Warriors(Tim Newark) good info for how Celtic Warriors looked through the ages.

There are others I use but these are the most useful to me. Hope this is helpful to someone.

 

[Standing-Stone]

Has anybody ever tried doing a plan of the Eternal Fortress Dinas Emyres.

I know there is discription of this in the 'Tir-Nan-Ogg' source book for D20 Slaine, but a few diagrams would be nice.

 

[The King]

may be you can try this web site; you'll probably find what you're looking for.
http://www.shee-eire.com/Sheehome.htm