Seeking Geograpy help

[Greenfield]

As some of you may know, we've set our campaign in something based on the real world.

I'm currently setting up another battle between the Persians and the Greeks at Thermopylae Pass.

And that's the area I need help with.

From what I've been able to find, Thermopylae isn't a high mountain pass. It's actually a gap between the mountains and the Gulf of Malia, a inlet that connects to the Agean Sea and cuts about a quarter of the way across the Greek peninsula.

There are sulfurous hot springs there (from which the area got its name), and a lot of volcanic caves. This area was believed to be a gateway to the underworld, an historic fact that plays nicely into our campaign theme.

Here's my problem: While this area is described as being a pass between the sea and the mountains, the classic battle there is said to have been between a Spartan force of 300 who faced off against a Persian force numbering in the thousands, and that the 300 stalemated the far superior force (for three days) between two towering cliffs.

Anybody have a good description of this area, one that can explain the apparent contradiction of an ocean on the east, and cliffs there as well?

 

[kitcik]

Here is one portion of the pass.

 

[Sekhmet]

Map of the Battle of Thermopylae 480 BC

 

[slobster]

For one thing, as I recall, it wasn't just 300 men defending the pass. Close to a thousand men from a nearby city and other parts of Greece reinforced them, fleeing only on the last day when defeat was obviously inevitable.

They had also partly fortified a hill, I believe, which served as a last redoubt. And they had longer spears and better equipment than their foes, as well as mastery of the phalanx tactic which proved decisive when employed defensively against the less disciplined Persians.

I think the cliffs are not the towering sheer faces shown in the movie "300", but were more like very craggy rockfaces, extremely dangerous to climb but not pure vertical slabs of rock.

And yes, as I understand it one of the sides of the pass was ocean.

 

[Sekhmet]

I think the cliffs are not the towering sheer faces shown in the movie "300", but were more like very craggy rockfaces, extremely dangerous to climb but not pure vertical slabs of rock.

And yes, as I understand it one of the sides of the pass was ocean.

As you can see in modern pictures of the scene of the battle, to the left you had some mountains - not exactly cliff faces, but certainly too difficult for an army to pass through on any sort of time table. On the right was the water, where a highway runs now.

 

[Celebrim]

Wikipedia is a reliable resource for anything that isn't of immediate political interest.

Here's my problem: While this area is described as being a pass between the sea and the mountains, the classic battle there is said to have been between a Spartan force of 300 who faced off against a Persian force numbering in the thousands, and that the 300 stalemated the far superior force (for three days) between two towering cliffs.

There are several gross simplifactions in that. First, while it's true that the Spartan force was just 300 Spartan citizens, the Spartans were backed up by about 900 Helot servants/skirmishers and about 3000 other Greeks under Leonidas and another 2000 or so local Greeks whose cities stood in the immediate path of the Persians.

The Persians probably numbered about 200,000-300,000.

Anybody have a good description of this area, one that can explain the apparent contradiction of an ocean on the east, and cliffs there as well?

The pass overlooks the ocean. It's a drop down on one side, not a climb up. Additionally, the ocean is a bay that extends into a valley, so that on either side of the bay the hills rise steeply up with only a narrow area of flat land. It's not a glacial fjord, but that picture might give you much of the right idea. There are pictures of the modern pass, but they show about 4 times as much land as was present then. The modern bay is much smaller than the one at the time of the battle. The pass was probably only about 100 yards wide at the time. The Persian army was trying to advance along one side of the valley, between the finger of the Gulf of Malia sticking into the valley and the steep hills on the other side.

 

[Greenfield]

Of course the legend version is a gross simplification. And that works just fine for a game. I have no intentions of trying to manage a battle involving a few hundred thousand men using D&D combat rules.

I mean, I may be crazy, but I ain't nuts.

No, the simplified version is pretty much all that will fit on a battle mat.

The key fact is that at that point the pass is too narrow for more than a few men to meet in battle. That takes away a lot of the advantage greater numbers bring. You might outlast in a battle of attrition, but you won't be able to overwhelm with sheer force.

The PCs, in my case, have opted to defend the Anopaean pass, described as a "goat path". It's how the Persians got behind the Greeks the first time.

Since I've included various magical beasts, it does change the face of things, but while giant eagles can carry people (as can dragons), they really can't carry enough people to make a difference.

I've also specified that the sea gods of the two empires are fighting each other, and the resultant storms provide the happy coincidence that keep the Persian fleet bottled up in port.

Since gods depend on their worshippers, and the worshippers depend on their gods at times like these, a simple truth becomes evident: If you want to bring down an empire, you have to take down their gods as well.

That factoid is kind of basic to the mega-plot of our world. And it follows that when you attack the followers, you're attacking the deity's power base, and the deity will act to defend himself.

So what the PCs need to do is settle with the force sent to secure the secondary pass. Put them down or drive them back so solidly that the enemy will consider that route impassable.

And, for fun, the party Druid, who the others refer to as an "eco-terrorist" decided to try the Contagion, Mass spell on the invading army. A military camp is a horrible place to start a plague.

The down side of this type of bio-warfare is that the spell isn't even a little subtle (a cloud of red and black swirling mists), and has zero incubation time, so the enemy can tell immediately what's going on. The infected don't have any time to infect anyone else, and can be isolated at once.

Or, plan B, the area of the Contagion spell is exactly the same area as a Fireball. It's a hard decision, but a commander who can't make the hard decisions isn't fit to command.

 

[Dandu]

Sounds like someone needs Invisible Spell.

 

[Dozen]

I've also specified that the sea gods of the two empires are fighting each other, and the resultant storms provide the happy coincidence that keep the Persian fleet bottled up in port.

Wow. Nice.
But shouldn't that give the Greeks an edge? A big one? If all of the Greek Sea Gods are on the player's side, the Persians are pretty much **ed no matter what. Just the sheer number of them exceeds that of the whole Persian pantheon, and they aren't some peaceful gods of seaweed, either(well, except for Thalassa, who kind of was, IIRC). I'd be a little more specific so the odds stay on the enemy's side. Like, Poseidon's or Phorcys's family. For drama, I vote for the latter. Poseidon ruled the whole place and everyone today has heard of him by now, while all Phorcys had are his wife who talks to whales and their weirdo kids. Let's say that Poseidon sent them to take care of the Persian mess in his backyard, greater classical deities were pricks like that.

 

[Celebrim]

I have no intentions of trying to manage a battle involving a few hundred thousand men using D&D combat rules.

It may be nuts, but you might find it is worth it. There is something about a truly epic battle as a highlight of a campaign that really few things can match. You wouldn't even necessarily need complex rules. Representing each 100 or 500 men as a single figure, picking a scale, and running the battle using something like the normal rules can be a whole lot of fun. We used Battlesystem back in the day to do our abstraction, but I'm sure there are several intersting (and probably better done) mass combat systems out there.

Granted, Thermopolyae was hardly interesting tactically speaking. It was a sheer attrition battle, and the Greeks really didn't have a chance. Sort of lost in the inpirational nature of the battle, is that it was a disasterous defeat for the Greek allies.