Points of Light: Against the Bandits and Raiders

[loseth]

[Multi-forum post: rpg.net, ENworld, WOTC boards]
PART I

WARNING: Long Post

With the help of many posters from the WOTC boards, RPG.net and ENworld, we were able to come up with a pretty good description of the darkness surrounding the points of light in a medieval fantasy world (here). However, it’s important to keep in mind that the points of light are anything but helpless against the darkness. ‘Points of Light’ describes a world of bold heroes who refuse to sit idly by as the darkness encroaches. These heroes will have to deal with many types of darkness, but in this thread, I’d like to address how the points of light can take the fight to raiders, bandits and other humanoid marauders.

I’ll outline my ideas and then ask posters to add as many ideas as they can.


HOW THE POINTS OF LIGHT CAN FIGHT MARUADERS, RAIDERS, BANDITS, ROBBER KNIGHTS, OUTLAWS AND BRIGANDS


FAITH

I’ll use the term priests pacific (as opposed to priests militant) to mean those priests making up the non-military arm of the church in the fantasy medieval world. In most game worlds, they’ll probably tend to be 0th-level NPCs, and so won’t be terribly helpful in a fight. However, they do help fight the darkness in several other ways. They bolster the well-being of the community by giving spiritual guidance and reinforcing hope. They also provide important (non-magical) healing skills. In addition, a DM may consider granting the priests pacific in her campaign the power of genuinely effective prayer. Through their prayers, the priests could actually help the community win the favour of the gods (thus ensuring better crops, less illness, etc.) or even place a spiritual barrier around the point of light, inflicting combat penalties on marauders who attack it.

But probably the most potent weapon that the priests pacific wield is the power of conversion. The best and most permanent way to deal with a group of hostile humanoids is to convert them to the faith. Unarmed (and usually without the skills to defend themselves even if they were armed), priests of Pelor, Bahamut and other civilised gods wander out into the darkness, with only their Holy Tomes, on a mission to bring true faith to those under the sway of dark deities. Sure, most of the time they fail—in fact most of the time they are killed—but every now and then, a priest manages to convert an influential warrior in a goblin village or a hobgoblin shaman, sewing the seeds of a new point of light.

Inspiration

The Name of the Rose has great examples of priests who have no particular combat abilities and can’t wield magic, but are still competent and important individuals. The Mission and Black Robe portray brave missionaries wandering out into the wilderness unarmed.

How the PCs fit in:
• The most important aid that PC heroes can give to priests pacific is protection. Of course, that’s what the priests militant are for, but there are never enough priests militant available and sometimes priests pacific will insist on going into the wilderness alone and unarmed, refusing to commit the unholy practice of ‘converting by the sword.’ In cases such as these, the PCs may need to follow at a discreet distance.
• Heroes will also be needed if a village has, for whatever reason, lost its priest—the heroes can go on a quest through the darkness to find a new one.
• The community will also need to rely on the help of heroes if a priest has become corrupt, possessed by a devil or secretly replaced by a shapeshifter such as a doppelganger.

HEROES

Of all the resources that the points of light have at their disposal, heroes are the most important. Heroes are men and women of unusual courage and ability who have what it takes to tackle the multitude of threats that face the points of light. In game terms, heroes are characters with heroic classes (fighter, warlock, rogue, etc.).

Points of light will actively seek out new heroes. Mayors, lords and abbots will always have an eye on the villagers for that one-in-a-thousand who might just have the stuff of legends in her. The court system will also be on the lookout. A petty thief who might just have the potential to be a Rogue, or a poacher that may be Ranger material, will probably receive a pardon in exchange for an agreement to undertake dangerous missions for the point of light.

To keep their heroes, points of light will often offer rewards. The exact type of reward will depend on the nature of the point of light. Villages will probably offer lands to heroes willing to settle in or near the village. For towns, the reward will tend to be money. The church will offer blessings and promotion within the church hierarchy. Powerful lords may offer knighthood or even strongholds as a long-term reward. Wizards will be attracted with promises of laboratories and well-stocked libraries.

However, the need for heroes is too great to simply wait for one to turn up—points of light will actively try to create new heroes. Again, each type of point of light will have their own way of doing this. Villages are aften ruled by knights who train their sons from boyhood to become knights themselves, and one or two sons might have the potential to be a Warlord or Fighter. The village yeomen (wealthier peasants) will probably be required to spend one day a week training with the longbow (or another military weapon), and maybe one or two of those yeomen will become Rangers or Fighters. The lord of the manor may encourage his daughter to study the mystic arts, hoping that she might become a Wizard. All towns train militias, and some particularly talented trainees may become Fighters or Warlords. Wizards will take on apprentices and determine which among the apprentices have the potential to develop real skill in the magical arts.

But it is the orders of priests militant, in particular, who are likely to be the makers of heroes. Militant orders consist not of ordinary priests, but of monastic knights—men and women who are ordained priests, but also trained warriors. Clerics and Paladins represent the most militarily and magically gifted among these knights. Militant orders scour the land looking for new talent, and then help to develop that talent with rigorous martial, magical and theological training. And it’s not just initiate priests militant that the orders help to develop—the orders also on the lookout for that special street urchin who might just become a legendary Rogue scout for the order, or that gypsy child who may have what it takes to become the monastery Wizard at one of the Order’s monastic fortresses. The orders are a good source of heroes and also a good patron for them—there are always plenty of quests and adventures that the order needs heroes to undertake, and never enough heroes to undertake them.

Inspiration

Legend, Lord of the Rings and Conan all have very different tones, but they all feature the kind of larger-than-life heroes that the points of light rely on.

How the PCs fit in:

They’re heroes, of course.

DEFENSIVE MIGHT

For the great nobles (kings, dukes, earls, marcher lords, counts and powerful barons), castles will provide the best possible defence. In fact, raiders and bandits are virtually powerless against such advanced fortifications, since they almost always lack the manpower or the technical knowledge (or both) for sieges. For larger towns, who also have plenty of money, stone walls, castles and towers will again be proof against almost any band of raiders or brigands. Only armies will be a serious threat. Monasteries, with their wealth and expert labour, will also tend to have strong stone walls and perhaps towers. Lone wizards will often have only a single tower, but made of stone and defended by magic, it too constitutes an effective fortification.

The real danger is for the villages and the smaller towns, in which 70-90% of the civilised population probably live. Villages are too small and too poor to be able to afford expensive fortifications. The lord of the manor is likely a knight who, though wealthy in comparison to the peasants, probably doesn’t have enough money for a single stone tower, never mind a stone wall or a castle. The smaller towns will be a bit better off financially, but even so will rarely have enough funds for extensive stone fortifications. However, there are plenty of effective defences within the means of a village or small town:

Rampart. By digging a ditch around a settlement and piling up the earth alongside the inside of the ditch, the villagers can build a steep embankment around their village. A wall of wooden stakes (called a ‘palisade’) is then placed on top of the embankment. The combination of ditch, embankment and palisade is referred to as a ‘rampart.’ The villagers won’t have the ability to construct or defend a rampart large enough to surround the fields of the village, but they can certainly build one around the close-packed houses in the centre of the village, and also around the lord’s manor (providing a second line of defence should the first one fall).

Wooden Wall. Used to protect the fortified towns of Alfred the great in the real middle ages, the wooden wall is made by erecting one tall palisade, and then a shorter one behind it. The gap between the two is then filled in with earth or debris, forming a basic-but-tough wall. The higher outside palisade means that defenders can stand on top of the wall and still have protection. As with the rampart, it could be erected around the village houses, the lord’s manor or both.

Stone Buildings. For real medieval villages, the stone church was often a place to make a last stand against raiders, since although it is not intended to be a fortification, the fact that it is made of stone means that it is hard to burn and very hard to break into when defended. The lord may also have similar stone buildings (such as a stone manor house or a small keep).

Water. Many villages lie alongside a river. Once a ditch has been dug in making the rampart, it will often be possible to divert the river to flow through the ditch, forming a shallow moat and making the rampart even more of an obstacle for potential raiders.

Inspiration

The Alamo, The Magnificent Seven, the defence of Helm’s deep in LotR, The 13th Warrior and Seven Samurai are all great stories of a spirited defence of a point of light.

How the PCs fit in:
• Raiders are aware of how difficult fortifications make their lives, so they’ll often try to bypass them with speed, striking so fast that villagers don’t have enough time to man the rampart and pull up the wooden planks across the ditches. In these cases, heroes can save the day by fighting a delaying action while the defences are manned.
• Unwilling to try a point of light’s defences, raiders and bandits may resort to kidnapping, and then threatening to execute or even torture victims if the gates are not opened. Heroes can save the situation by conducting a stealth infiltration of the enemy camp or a lightning raid to rescue the kidnap victims.
• In the real middle ages, probably the single biggest danger to stone walls was ‘sapping’ (i.e. tunnelling under the walls and then collapsing the tunnels to bring down a section of the wall down). The defender will normally counter-mine, trying to get into the enemy tunnels, and if successful, heroes will be needed to rush into the enemy tunnels and thwart the sappers.
• Sophisticated raiders (like a robber baron) might bring siege engines to bear on the point of light’s defences. These could batter down a town or village’s defences over time, but heroes can attempt to destroy these engines with raids or infiltration.


RECCONAISSANCE

As mentioned in ‘Defensive Might,’ raiders will often try to use stealth and speed to hit a point of light before the defences can be properly organised. Getting advance warning of impending raids is thus of the highest importance. Watch towers, placed in a town’s walls or around a village’s perimeter, can give visual warning of an impending threat, particularly if the point of light has members with darkvision who can man the towers at night. Regular patrols are also a good way of checking whether any dangers are near. For towns, a detachment of militia might perform these patrols, while in a village it will probably be the local lord (or his son) and his men-at-arms. Castles will dispatch a small part of their garrison to go on patrol, as will the monastic fortresses of the orders of priests militant. In addition to patrols, magical or divine scrying is also of immense value. Towns and castles will often employ a wizard for precisely this purpose. Villages won’t usually have access to such magic, but in a few, the lady of the manor or her daughter might be a wizard or warlock capable of divination magic.

Local informants are another good source of information. These could be friendly sources, like a local hermit or a nearby wizard living in her tower, or they might be enemy sources who are bribed or coerced into giving information. Spies among enemy raider tribes or bandit gangs can also give detailed information about recent happenings in the darkness around a point of light, and when a potential attack on the point of light might be expected.

Inspiration

The kind of reconnaissance that the Black Company is constantly undertaking is a good inspiration for this sort of thing.

How the PCs fit in:
• Patrols are dangerous, and the more dangerous ones would ideally be conducted by heroes who can get themselves out of trouble should they run into it.
• A patrol of NPCs might disappear, indicating trouble. Heroes will be needed to find out what happened to the missing patrol.
• Bandits or raiders may try to overwhelm a watch tower in preparation for an attack. If so, heroes might try to rescue the watchperson in the tower. More sophisticated enemies may try to nullify a point of light’s watch towers by selectively assassinating those members of a point of light who have darkvision. If such a situation begins happening in a point of light, heroes will be needed to investigate and resolve the situation.
• Raiders or brigands with access to magic might be able to block the divination powers of a point of light’s mage. If this happens, heroes will have to track down the blocking source and eliminate or capture it (whether it’s a hobgoblin shaman or a powerful magic item).
• Local informants are always in a precarious position. The enemy may decide to eliminate a hermit who passes information onto the points of light, or a goblin tribe of raiders may discover that one of their members is a rat. In either case, it will take real heroes to extricate the informant from their predicament.
• Spying and recruiting new informants among the enemy are extremely dangerous and difficult tasks. Definitely not a job for the non-heroic.

 

[loseth]

PART II

OFFENSIVE MIGHT

In the real middle ages, most European societies had lost the hard military edge that characterised the early middle ages by the time they got to the period on which D&D is modelled (late middle ages/early Renaissance), because most political entities were quite secure relative to the earlier period. But in a points-of-light world, such security simply doesn’t exist, and so most points of light will still be heavily militarised, using a mix of military-societal systems that existed in the early and late real middle ages.

Castles and the monastic fortresses of priests militant will have sizeable garrisons of professional soldiers that will force raiders to keep their distance. Towns, with all their wealth, will be a more tempting and softer target for raiders, but will have a militia and enough gold to hire professional mercenaries when need be. Most towns will also have a band or two of heroes who can be called upon in dark times.

Even villages will be able to muster some military might. The average village will have either a knight or an abbey as its lord. In either case, the lord will usually be able to provide a small body of heavily armed and armoured men (‘men-at-arms’, who may be noble knights or non-noble ‘sergeants’) who can fight both on horseback and on foot. The exact size of this force will vary, but probably be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3-7 men. In addition, the yeomen (wealthy peasant land owners) will be required to train one or two days a week with a good military weapon (just as they were in the real medieval England). This will probably be the longbow (the weapon of the real English yeomanry), the pike (the weapon of the real Scots yeomanry) or the crossbow (popular among the yeomanry of many real medieval regions). This will provide the average village with a base of 20-40 trained militiamen who, although not professional soldiers, can be called upon in times of need. It’s also likely that, in the dangerous fantasy medieval world, the laws of many villages will require even the poorer land owners to train at least occasionally, probably with a cheaper weapon, such as a spear or an improvised weapon like a pitch-fork or scythe. This will provide another 30-60 militiamen when needed, though the troop quality will be very low. Perhaps most importantly, one or two of the men-at-arms and one or two of the yeomen will probably have a Heroic class (usually Fighter for men-at-arms, and either Fighter or Ranger for yeomen). These men and women will be the champions of the village, able to slay a dozen or so raiders single-handedly.

In times of extreme need, the whole village militia, along with its heroes, could be mobilised as a small army, presenting a serious military challenge to nearby groups of hostile humanoids. However, most of the time, mobilising the militia of a village or small town will be impractical. The militia's part-time soldiers will be farmers and craftsmen, husbands and fathers who won’t want to risk their lives in battle on any sort of regular basis. Normally, the military burdens of the village or small town will fall on the professional soldiers (the knights and men-at-arms) and on the heroes. These warriors will constitute an elite and highly-mobile strike force. Similarly, larger towns will tend to hire a small group of men-at-arms or else have an elite, professional core to their militia.

The numbers of these soldiers will (for all but the largest towns) be too small for large-scale military operations, but there is plenty else to be done. First, the patrols discussed earlier can turn into offensive operations if they can catch a small group of enemies off-guard. The points of light can also conduct punitive raids: when a raider group attacks the village or town, make them think twice by hitting them hard in a lightning raid the next day. Pre-emptive raids are also a good way of weakening an enemy—if a point of light receives intelligence that the Big Stone Clan of ogres is going to make an attempt on the village, the point of light can raid their camp and destroy their supplies so the ogres will have to spend the summer re-supplying instead of mounting an attack on the village.

But perhaps most effective of all is targeted offensive action based on intelligence from spies within points of darkness. Normally these actions will take the form of the selective assassination or capture of key members of a point of darkness. For example, a small team might be sent to assassinate the warlike chief or an orc clan in hopes that his daughter, who is more open to negotiation with the points of light, will take over the leadership of the clan. Or, if an informant identifies the location of the hall where the elite warriors of a human raiding clan spend their nights drinking and wenching, a band of heroes may be dispatched to attack them after a hard night of drinking.

Inspiration

Once again, The Black Company provides an excellent example of an elite strike force undertaking offensive action.

How the PCs fit in:

● Heroes are well-suited to the raids described above and are probably the only ones who would stand a significant chance of success in operations focussing on selective assassination or capture. For this reason, the elite strike forces of towns and villages will often contain characters with heroic classes. A typical village band of heroes might be as follows:

Sir Reginald
-Son of Sir Robert, the lord of the manor
-Human Male Warlord 1

William
-Sergeant in the employ of Sir Robert
-Human Male Fighter 1

Delia
-Daughter of the manor's huntsman
-Human Female Ranger 1

Lady Allia
-Lady of the manor who dabbles in black magic (much to her husband's displeasure)
-Female Human Warlock 1

Herman the Ferret
-Convicted itinerant conman/peddler, given a reprieve in exchange for a promise of five years' service to Sir Robert
-Male Tiefling Rogue 1

A small town’s band of heroes may reflect a more urban outlook:

Celeste the Lucky
-Influential guildswoman who dabbles in larceny. Good connections in the town’s commercial class.
-Half-Elven Female Rogue 2

Tibald
-Best swordsman in the town watch
-Human Male Fighter 2

Oren
-Tibald’s best friend, a corporal in the watch
-Human Male Warlord 2

Risin Six Fingers
-The town wizard. Used to live in another town across the lake and still has good connections there, as well as in his native Elven clan. He swears his extra finger on his right hand gives him that extra oomph in his magic missile.
-Elven Wizard 3

Miriam of Appleton
-Assistant to the town priest. Forced by her worried middle-class parents to go into the clergy, she dreams of learning the arcane arts and becoming a renowned adventurer.
-Human Female Cleric 1

● Highly militarised points of light, such as castles and monastic fortresses, may well have more than one elite strike force. But such strongholds will be few in number and their help will be in constant demand from dozens of nearby villages, so there will be plenty of tasks even for the more junior heroes to undertake. A young (junior) band of heroes from a monastic fortress might be as follows:

Sir Fredric, Knight of the Order of St. Pelor the Bountiful
-Youngest son of a landless knight, given to the Order as a child
-Human Male Cleric 1

Lady Corin, Knight of the Order of St. Pelor the Bountiful
-Only daughter of an older, respected knight of the order. A bit arrogant concerning her lineage.
-Human Female Paladin 1

Squire Allgon, Squire of the Order of St. Pelor the Bountiful
-Son of a bandit captured and hung by the Order, Allgon was raised by the brothers in the monastery.
-Hobgoblin Male Paladin 1
-Must achieve level 2 before being knighted, because of his non-noble blood

Finn
-A scout in the employ of the fortress. Grew up in a nearby village.
-Human Male Rogue 1

Abelard
-Fat, quick-tempered apprentice to the fortress magician. A teetotal and a terrible glutton.
-Dwarven Male Wizard 1

● Bandits, in particular, will have to be dealt with via offensive might. Too weak to take on the defences of a point of light, bandits will normally lurk in the shadows and forests outside a point of light in order to prey on those who venture too far from the community or attempt to travel the roads. Because bandits are not only dangerous, but also good at hiding from the law, heroes will have the best chance of tracking them down and bringing them to justice.

● Although more troublesome for the DM, full-scale military campaigns against raiders and marauders can also be an excellent opportunity to get PCs involved in adventures. Potential missions on a military campaign include:

--scouting to obtain intelligence on the enemy’s position or situation
--entering a dungeon to recover an item useful in fighting the enemy
--capturing enemy scouts
--entering the enemy camp as a spy, to gain intelligence or feed false information to the enemy
--destroying the enemy’s supplies in the enemy camp or capturing enemy supplies before they reach the enemy camp
--infiltrating the enemy camp to capture or kill a key figure
--rescuing captives from the enemy camp
--taking on elite or entrenched enemy forces during a battle

GOLD & REALPOLITICK

As romantic as the image is of a band of noble knights chasing off a group of raiders, sometimes the enemy is simply too strong to fight without the danger of seriously weakening the point of light in the process. In these cases, it is sometimes best to do what the English often did when faced with Viking raiders: pay them to go away. Although villages might have trouble coming up with enough moveable wealth to accomplish this, towns will usually have the means to pay off a group of raiders, as long as they don't have to do so too often.

A particularly crafty town council might even pay one group of raiders to attack another, thus keeping both enemies weak (a tried and true tactic in the real middle ages). And sometimes gold will not even be necessary to set one enemy against another: stealing the winter food supplies of a local orc tribe and making it look as if the raid were carried out by the lizardfolk clan from the marsh could easily send two points of darkness to war with each other. There is also the old saying concerning 'the enemy of my enemy:' if the orcs of the Red Arrow, who constantly raid the village, are sworn enemies of the orcs of the Black Shield, who live 20 miles downriver, then the lord of the village might send an emissary to the Black Shield chief to sound him out for a possible alliance.

Inspiration

I’m not sure about fiction, but reading about how Russian settlements dealt with the Golden Horde and how England dealt with the Vikings is pretty good inspiration for this sort of thing.

How the PCs fit in:

● When conducting any kind of diplomacy with a 'point of darkness,' the emissaries will inevitably have to travel through dangerous lands; heroes thus make the ideal emissaries, or at least the ideal bodyguards for them.
● Another danger for envoys on diplomatic missions that aim to play one side off against the other is that the point of darkness who stands to lose from the bargain will be particularly interested in hunting down the emissaries before they can reach their destination. Heroes capable of eluding such pursuit, or dealing with it if they can't elude it, will be needed for these missions.
● If a point of light is successful in getting one enemy to go to war with another, then it will be in the interests of the point of light to keep the conflict going on as long as possible. If one point of darkness is in danger of losing badly, a band of heroes may be sent out to procure aid for the losing side or to strike (possibly secretly) at the winning side.
● If a point of light is under siege, without hope of winning, but equally without hope of coming up with the cash to pay the raiders off, then a band of heroes might be sent out to find the gold needed. Robbing the hall of a wealthy orc chieftan in order to pay off a horde of hill giants besieging the town might seem a little risky, but it may well be the only hope that the town has.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

In the real middle ages, agricultural settlements ranged in size from single homesteads to villages of 500 or more people and 5000 or more acres (Gies and Gies 1990; Platt 1994; Coulton 1989), depending on the time and place. However, in the dangerous fantasy medieval world, people will tend to crowd together for protection. The average village size will probably be at least 500. Small towns will probably be of a similar minimum size (the main distinction between town and village is not size, but whether or not the settlement is totally agricultural, whether it has legal status as a town and whether it has a market). This minimum size will help ensure that villages and small towns are large enough to defend themselves. Much greater numbers than the real middle ages will also be needed when travelling. Roads will be too dangerous for lone travellers (unless those travellers are very powerful indeed), and most villages will send out a few large and very well guarded caravans each season rather than numerous smaller caravans that would make easy prey for bandits.

But the idea of strength in numbers will extend beyond the single point of light. The points of light will soon realise that they will often need to work together against the darkness. This will probably lead to 'Right of Protection' agreements, where one point of light is obliged to protect the caravans of others passing through its territory, although bad blood between points of light will always have the potential to derail such agreements. 'Right of Shelter' customs will probably also evolve in a points-of-light world, although the presence of devils and shapeshifters may cause such customs to be observed in the breach more often than not. In practical game terms, the need for points of light to work together will often lead to campaigns that tend to focus more on a network of interconnected points of light than on any one single point of light.

Inspiration

Reading about life in real medieval villages can inspire you to think about the ways in which life would need to change to accommodate the various threats present in the medieval fantasy world. Gies & Gies’ Life in a Medieval Village and Danziger & Gilligham’s 1215 are good reads, though the latter is written by journalists and not 100% accurate.

How the PCs fit in:
● In the dangerous fantasy medieval world, points of light can't afford to be too small: they must be of a sufficient size to defend themselves. So when population levels drop—from disease, raids or people simply leaving for another point of light—then something must be done to keep population levels up. Heroes can attempt to rescue enslaved people from points of darkness and bring them back to the point of light. Alternatively, missionary heroes might increase population by converting those under the sway of the darkness, winning them to the light. Heroes might also go on a quest to acquire something that would help attract more residents, like a bowl of plenty or a never-ending jug of water.
● If all else fails, and a point of light has dwindled too much to be able to defend itself, then a band of heroes might be asked to lead the population on an epic quest to join another point of light or find a new, more attractive location for their settlement.
● Caravans are the life blood of points of light, bringing goods and materials that a point of light cannot produce itself. Protecting caravans is thus of the greatest importance and a job worthy of heroes. Heroes will also be needed if a caravan goes missing—they can track down the missing caravan and attempt to recover the goods it was carrying (and possibly eliminate the threat that led to the caravan’s disappearance in the first place).
● Right of Protection agreements are essential to the prosperity of points of light in a trade network. If, for whatever reason, such agreements are rescinded as a result of tension between two points of light, then heroes may be sent on a diplomatic mission to ease relations, or they may be sent on a quest to deal with whatever is causing the friction.
● When Right of Shelter is granted to a group who turns out to be devils, criminals or shapeshifters, then heroes will be needed to contain the damage.

WATER

Water is one of the most important defensive strengths that a community can have. Ample wells or a fresh-water river flowing through the village ensures that even when under siege, a community will have sufficient drinking water. As Edward I amply demonstrated with his formidable Welsh castles, a strong point that is on a river or coast can be re-supplied by ships, bypassing any besieging force. Water transport is also tremendously useful in peacetime: ships are much faster and vastly cheaper (for bulk goods) than overland transport, so points of light that can trade by water can expect to prosper. In the fantasy medieval world, air might play a similar role to water, with manmade aerial transport (such as airships) or aerial mounts (such as pegasi) providing all the benefits of water, but to an even greater extent.

Inspiration

Patrician III is a great PC game of medieval seaborne trade in the Baltic (with 17th-century weaponry?!).

How the PCs fit in:
● One of the first tricks that marauders attacking a city will try is to poison or cut off an external water supply to the point of light. Heroes can be sent to try and stop the enemy from accomplishing this or, if it is not possible to stop them, to acquire enough water to keep the point of light alive (by finding a magical source of water, for example).
● Since trade by water is so important, pirates are a major concern. Heroes might be sent on a waterborne adventure to protect a convoy, to hunt down a notorious pirate or to raid a known pirate base identified by reconnaissance.
● A particularly large or industrious point of light may want to procure a better water supply for its members, requiring a major engineering project such as building an aqueduct, diverting a river or constructing a canal. Bandits will likely take the opportunity to raid supplies going out to the engineering projects, and the workers will be in great danger while exposed to the darkness, so heroes would be most welcome as protection.



So, here's where I ask for your help. What other means can you think of that the points of light might have at their disposal to deal with marauding humanoids? Can you add any new categories or flesh out the categories I’ve listed above?

Thanks in advance,

loseth

 

[bruceparis]

Points of Light

Nice essay! Congratualations!

Quite a few of your "inspirations" are also my own.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Damned good work, man. Damned good work.

Also, you sound a lot like SHARK.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Keep on the Borderlands.

Next!

 

[IanArgent]

One of the "Netbook" projects on the WotC forums (the Dungeonomicon) touches on what period the "assumed setting" of D&d closely resembles - the Bronze Age/Heroic Age.

Going with this influence, you get the "Champion vs Champion" often decides things instead of armies; and that raid, pillage, and loot is more the way of things than wipe out and destroy...

 

[loseth]

Also, you sound a lot like SHARK.

I'm deeply honoured.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So, here's where I ask for your help. What other means can you think of that the points of light might have at their disposal to deal with marauding humanoids? Can you add any new categories or flesh out the categories I’ve listed above?

Thanks in advance,

loseth

Attack their economy directly.

Burn ground, slaughter herds, divert water sources, desecrate altars.

Hire other humanoids to attack them.

Mire them in internicine rivalries and conflicts.

Addict them to a product only you know how to produce.

Volunteer your point of light as a lure for some truly powerful predator - sure the Illithid could eat your village but if he just sticks around he can get truly copious quantities of brains by sucking down the nearly inexhaustable supply of raiders that a truly prosperous, cozy, and seemingly defenseless shire style village can attract.

Integrate them into the system. Give them titles and positions and export the culture to them rather than having them export themselves into you culture.

Involve them in a slave trading economy.

Oh, wait, how light do you want this point to stay as it's fighting for its survival?

 

[Aloïsius]

As said in the other thread, darkness is not only about marauding raiders or marching armies.

What defenses against the other cause of darkness ?

• disease : There is probably a healer even in the smallest village. Probably one of the most precious person of the community. He may have magical power, or not. If not, he probably use herbal lore.
  How the PC fit ? One of the PC can be the healer of a community, but this won't lead to fantastic adventure. More interesting, the PC may have to rescue the healer of a community. They may be send to look for the rare and precious plant that can save the village/the princess from the pest. Too bad, it only grow on a wyvern infested cliff...
  
  
• famine : In point of light, most community grow their own food rather than buying it. However, fishers, peasants, herders or gatherer/hunters have different ways of collecting food. Plowing is probably not spectacular, but hunting dinosaurs...
  The granary (or granaries) may be one of the most strategic place in a town. In times of trouble, it's probably guarded 24 hours a day against sabotage...
  Herds of animals are another ressources. Not all nomadic tribes belongs to the darkness, some of them may perfectly fill the role of merchants. However, their herds of whatever-beastie they use is probably more precious to them than the merchandise they sell here and there.
  How the PC fit . A hunt scenario is always a lot of fun : finding the big beast, fighting it, killing it, and then rejoicing around huge bonefire with the happy villagers... But what if the beast is not there ? Why are the bisons/thuna/diplodocus not coming this year ? Something may block their passage...
  Disputed ressources : one of the first reason for bad blood between point of light is the dispute around vital ressources. What if the herds graze upon the fields of the labourers ? This could lead to a classic nomad VS sedentary war, if the PCS don't find a solution.
  
  
• other natural disaster
  Some places adapt to the natural perils (in a fantasy world, this may lead to really strange places). Others seems just happy to rebuild on a regular basis and adopt a more fatalist attitude. By exemple, a levee can protect the town from a flood, or may be the town is made of boats (a floating town) anyway. Or maybe the town is just flooded every 50 years.
  The use of magic, especialy divine magic, is probably one of the "best" solution against those problems. Now, what if you don't have the required high level spellcaster, but, instead, a ritual that works just as well ? Only that you need some sacrifice, for the greater good, of course.
  How the PC fit Depending of their level, they can do a lot of things.
  - help the community to recover from the disaster. (healing, protecting against scavengers...)
  - warn the community from the incoming disaster (you have to evacuate ! the dam is about to break !)
  - lessen the effects of a disaster (usually, through magic) or offer refuge to the population against the elements (ditto : how many rope trick can you cast in a day ?).
  - stop the disaster : it's one thig to stop a hord a goblins, it's another to stop a flow of lava... But not impossible at high level. Some PC may be able to redirect a disaster : for example, the flood enginered by the hobgoblins army or shaman to allow the invasion of the town may as well strike the ennemy, if the PCs find a good idea.
  The PCs may have to recover an artifact that protect such or such place from the yearly thunderstorms that would otherwise reduce it to ashes, or they may have to destroy the black altar of bad luck, hidden somewhere in the mountain caves, so that calamities stop to hit the region.

 

[loseth]

Attack their economy directly.

Burn ground, slaughter herds, divert water sources, desecrate altars.

Doh! I can't believe I didn't that! Good point.

Your point also brings up the interesting need to think about what, exactly, constitutes the economy of a typical kobold, orc or ogre society. I think I'll start a separate thread on that...

Integrate them into the system. Give them titles and positions and export the culture to them rather than having them export themselves into you culture.

Very Roman. I like.

Addict them to a product only you know how to produce.

Volunteer your point of light as a lure for some truly powerful predator - sure the Illithid could eat your village but if he just sticks around he can get truly copious quantities of brains by sucking down the nearly inexhaustable supply of raiders that a truly prosperous, cozy, and seemingly defenseless shire style village can attract.

Involve them in a slave trading economy.

Wow. You have a mind posessed of unusual deviousness.