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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 6800176" data-attributes="member: 16814">Well, as noted, Eberron has a substantially sized Hob nation.  Most of my homebrews generally have at least a good Texas county sized area that's mostly under Hob control.  I like 'em.But let's look at numbers.  A 200 strong hobgoblin force would need a total population (other hobs and slaves [EDIT: given the confusion below, by this I mean that the total population base includes slaves, as they provide direct support to the tribe, but they would not be mustered.  This is essentially counting slaves as the peasant farmer base of most medieval countries that were often, by law and treaty, not allowed to be armed]) of about 1,400.  That's a large village/small town's worth, and a number of plantations.  Even if we assume that such a warband is a surge effect, representing maybe 30% of the total population, that's still a total population of 700.  That's close to 1e numbers, but still a decent sized village.  Such an establishment isn't very difficult, and most adventurers don't kill 200 hobs in game.But what if we want a proper army?  Well, that's not too bad, either.  A 10,000 strong army, say a core of 7,000 hobs and 3,000 assorted auxillaries (allies) would need a supporting population of 47,000 (assuming the auxillaries aren't directly supported by the hobs, and are hired as needed from surrounding allies).  That's a few towns, a bunch of villiages, and maybe a small city for the hobs.  If it's marginal land with a total population density of 40/square mile, that's about the size of Luxembourg.  If it's decent land, say 80 per square mile, it's slightly bigger than Hong Kong.  You can tuck that away in a bunch of places in a fantasy world.  For comparison, France's population density in the 14th century was a bit over 100 people/square mile, Germany clocked in at 90, and the British Isles was sparsely populated at 40ish.Even accounting for a medieval economy and social structure, it's a bit shocking to realize how many people were crowded into such small spaces.  Eh, economically speaking, even hobs couldn't afford that many full timers.  Soldiers were expensive, which is why most armies historically were raised, fought, and disbanded in three months or less.  They'd just do it again the next year if it wasn't settled yet.  It's very unlikely that even Hobs could muster up 25% of their population (this includes slaves, not just hobs [EDIT: as part of the population base.  Slaves would not be mustered, ever]) except under dire circumstances.  As for commoner hobgoblins, even they would be trained as footsoliders for the legions, even if most of the time they supervised slaves or, embarrassingly, had to do the labor themselves.  Smart ones would be craftsmen, but even they would know the right end of the sword and how to form the shieldwall.No doubt.  Proper hobgoblin soldiers are the captains.  The basic training grunts are the normal ones.  Humans can be better, but most aren't, and even the trained ones are on par with the basic hobgoblin.  Hobs live and breathe war -- it's their single highest calling.  They're steeped in it as a culture.  It makes perfect sense that their 'barely trained' is equivalent to a professional human soldier (although not a stupidly powerful and rare PC).No, it doesn't.  I covered this above, but it requires very little space.  Eberron has a legacy of a Hobgoblin empire, and they're doing alright in the current timeline.  Kingdoms of Kalamar has more than one hobgoblin nation.  Greyhawk has a number of very large and successful tribes in the lands controlled by Iuz.  In the Realms they're not well detailed, but there's plenty of room for a few big tribes out in the wilderness areas.Which campaign world are you talking about?  I'm not that familiar with all of them, so maybe I'm just missing this crucial piece of lore from somewhere.Huh?  No idea where you got 7x their numbers in slaves.  I said that they could likely muster 7% of their total population (including slaves as part of that population) easily, and 15% most likely given their heavy martially oriented society and slave use, but I certainly didn't say that there's 7 slaves for every hob.I like my worlds to make sense.Um, what?  I didn't say they armed their slaves as auxiliaries.  They don't enslave every goblin tribe or bugbear or ogre.  Some they make deals with, for specifically this purpose.  They call out the goblin tribes that live under the "protection" of the hobgoblin fist and they work as scouts and archers for the hobs on campaign.  Same with bugbears and ogres.  Occasionally you make a deal with a troll or 8.  Yeah, okay, good thing I didn't say that, then.  You've spent a lot of time being aggressively insulting about something you misunderstood.  If you really thought that I had so obviously and egregiously contradicted myself, wouldn't have been a bit better to ask if I meant that instead of going on for a few paragraphs arguing how dumb I was to say such a thing when I didn't say that at all?  At least for you.  I don't mind.Hobs, as written, have a clear Roman Legions vibe coming off of them.  The Romans didn't do that, and had the most powerful and feared military for many hundreds of years.  Citizens were in the legions.  The legions didn't scout.  The legions weren't archers.  The legions were cavalry.  The legions weren't skirmishers.  They were the premier heavy infantry.  For all those other jobs, the Romans hire auxiliaries, who weren't citizens, but were part of the Empire.  They weren't slaves, they weren't foreigners, they were those that were part of the empire but not citizens.  Much like I suggested that privileged goblin tribes, bugbears, and ogres/trolls would be used by hobgoblins.  They aren't members of the tribe (the tribe is the Legion), but they're allies, and useful, and work with as needed in return for the protection of the hobgoblins.</blockquote>

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