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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tiefling" data-source="post: 52153" data-attributes="member: 251">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?</blockquote>