Do armies in your campaign go around raping, pillaging, and plundering?

[Tiefling]

Back in the middle ages that most fantasy settings are based on, the only way to get a significantly sized army anywhere was for it to strip everything that could possibly be consumed from the land that it passed through, simply because it's impractical to haul in thousands upon thousands of pounds of food, among other supplies, each day. Unless there was an abundance of coin, which was usually not the case, the army wouldn't pay for any of it, and the peasants would have to starve. Since the soldiers' weren't usually paid much of anything, they would also plunder every town and home for valuables to bring home later. And of course there would be a lot of rape, not that there's any real need for that. Keep in mind that armies would be pretty small, only a few thousand, because after that even stripping the land of food starts to become inadequate.

Although there might be significant magical help in D&D worlds, even a lot of wizards and sorcerors using all their spells on Teleport to bring in food wouldn't make much difference if you're talking about armies of tens of thousands. But I don't recall reading in any campaign material about this nasty aspect of war. Do armies in your world pillage and plunder wherever they go? If not, what supports them?

 

[MythandLore]

Do armies in your campaign go around raping, pillaging, and plundering?

They may, Depends on the army.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Do armies in your campaign go around raping,

Armies of good-aligned countries seldom do.

pillaging,

Often, yes, but it depends on the army.

and plundering?

Yes. How else could they be supported? That's just a fact of life. Sun Tzu and all that.

 

[barsoomcore]

Definitely. There's rape, pillage and plunder aplenty.

The arrival of an army has a profound effect on the surrounding countryside -- people's lives get destroyed just because it goes by, never mind a battle being fought. Sons and daughters sign up and are never seen again, or able-bodied types are pressed into service, crops are stolen and houses burned down, families slaughtered because they tried to keep their stocks from the passing horde.

An NPC who recently joined my party was a refugee from just such a circumstance -- her husband and young daughter were killed and she just barely got away. Now she's hanging out with the PCs, who are always surrounded by mayhem, bloody, agonizing deaths, vampires and even more disturbing creatures. She's not very happy with the way her life is going just now.

Nations get torn apart and economically wiped out just from the effort required to create and maintain an army -- look at what happened to Britain last century. War is a fearful, awful thing and it shapes history in brutal ways.

 

[Dravin]

Well you have to consider that with magic everything is possible.

A Gourd or Bottle of endless water could and would guarantee a fresh water supply so you could march an army of tens of thousands through the Sahara Desert and not have to worry about your army dying of thirst. (Heat stroke maybe.)

A Cleric could make a Wagon of Plenty and thus provide food for your army (though admittedly it's probably take more then one wagon.)


Of course such niceties would only be avilable to rich armies, you basic Orcish Horde would have to do it the old fashion way, and considering Orcs they would probably prefer it.

 

[KnowTheToe]

My armies are usually light on rape but gung ho on pillage and plunder. To the winner goes the spoil. I think it helps demonstrate the darkness of war and the effects on the people. It may have been a driving force of defeated peoples succumbing to the will of their new rulers, at least the armies are gone and I am safe...

 

[Kesh]

In my homebrew world of Ryeth, the gnolls do this. There hasn't been a major war in years, but border skirmishes happen all the time and any settlement near the borders is constantly harassed by one side or the other. When a real invasion does occur, you can bet there's pillaging and looting. Rape happens too, but only if one can get by with it... gnolls are heavily into slavery, and if the 'goods' are too badly damaged, the gnoll in question could lose his life (or just parts of his anatomy). However, anyone not fit for slavery or too resistant is fair game, and those often don't survive the experience...

The humans typically return the favor against gnoll settlements, but raping a gnoll is rare. You try forcing something several feet taller and twice as strong as you to lie still for that.

As to the elves... well, the gnolls don't bother them much. They learned their lesson last time...

 

[mmadsen]

Did anyone else see the title of this thread and think "SHARK"?

 

[Corinth]

SHARK, I Choose You!

Not really, but I expect him to stop by anytime now and relate another long tale of the virtuous Valoran Empire that--somehow--will answer the question put forth in the initial post.

Speaking of which, the answer is "On average, yes."

 

[Hejdun]

Well, that's why you have Bags of holding to store food in. A decanter of endless water (or whatever it's called...) and you're set for water, and a few bags of holding stuffed with food will mean you're set for a while.

Good-aligned armies never pillage, plunder, rape, etc. They subjugate and reform. The evil armies pillage, plunder, and rape like there's no tomorrow. A town taken by an evil army is a town that will spend a large majority of it's time in fear, and broke. There are exceptions, yes, like extremely lawful good armies. Some good examples are in Dragonlance.