Thay assaults Rashemen! (Updates from the game...)

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Sun-tzu's Art of War gives some answers, if you don't mind using chariots and finding out what a li is.

You can get it free on-line (legally, too). The copyright ran out on that a long time ago, after all.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Some other thoughts ...



The DMG rules for populating cities are geared around the "generic" pseudo-medieval setting; you can alter those to re-tune for a different culture / region.

• Adjust dice sizes to raise/lower the maximum level generated for each class, to reflect how common that class is in "this area".
• Remove rolls for classes you don't allow
• Add rolls for new BASE classes in use
• Change the proportion of 1st level NPCs ... instead of .5% Adepts, .5% Aristocrats, 3% Experts, 5% warriors, and 91% commoners, make "this region" 2% Adepts, .1% Aristocrats, 8% Experts, 30% warriors, and 59.9% Commoners (for example)

Fields of Blood, as I mentioned in the comparison thread, is the only one of the domain management books to really incorporate the differences in cultures. However, the established economies of Thay and Rashemen may not fit well within its rules structure.

I really wish i had my book at work. Remove Warriors, ARistocrats, and Adepts from that list. everyone with magical talent is taken at a very early age to be trained by the Witches of Rashemen. Males get wisked away to become magic item creators and the females rule the land as Clr/Wix or Sorc/Clr and Hathran PRC's.

ALL of the fighters are Barbiarians with a Few Barbarian/Fighters, Barbarian/Bards and Barbarian/Experts.

There really arent all that many male commoners among the rashemi, simply by nessesity. A commoner of any level really couldnt survive the dangers of the Rashemi landscape. If anything, The majority of the female population (that werent spellcasters) would be Experts, Commoners and Bards. Though i think BArds would be recruited into the sisters.

I'd like to see your same question posted at the Wizards boards. I'm wondering what Elaine would say. (Rashemen is her baby...)

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Page 139 of Unapproachable East talks about Rashemi defense and warcraft. I'll post some of the more interesting points here:

• The standard military leader or elite soldier in Rashemen is a member of the barbarian class, rather than the fighter class.
• The warriors of Rashemen favor light or medium armor so they can stay mobile, and dress in camoflague that allows them to blend into the snow.
• The warriors of Rashemen don't have cavalry. Sometimes they use small mountain ponies to quickly move to the front lines, but they dismount in combat because the ponies are not suitable war mounts.
• The military is divided into "Fangs", which are groups of berserkers who come from the same lodge.
• The berserkers are terrifying foes, but they rarely use group tactics. The berserkers will often charge forward and tear holes in the enemy lines, while the witches will use magic to support them.
• Rashemen's military rarely leaves its own borders. When they do leave, it is mostly to perform retaliatory strikes.

]

Jez, the city he is describing.
CAn you find it in the book and post its statistics for us?

 

[Dark Jezter]

]

Jez, the city he is describing.
CAn you find it in the book and post its statistics for us?

I'm not going to post the statistics as they are in the book, since that would probably be considered copyright violation, and it would also get very tedious typing out the entire stat block. But I'll put the most vital information here...

The population of the city is 4,848 (although over 3,900 of the residents are 1st-level commoners). 92% of the population is human, 7% is spirit folk, and 1% is "other."

The lord of the city is Urphrong Brakk Keldurr, a CN male human Bbn8. Othlor Sheva Whitefeather is the ranking witch of the region, and she is a CG female human Clr8/Sor4/Hth3.

Other important NPCs in the city are Fyldrin of the Eleven Chairs, who is the leader of a buccaneer band who harry the coast of Thay, and Shelvedar Nuum, a shadowmaster spy posing as a Theskan merchant.

The city's army is called the Urphong's Host, and it's primarily made up of 1st-level warriors. There are also several members of the barbarian class to be found in the Urphong's Host as well, although they aren't nearly as numerous as members of the warrior class. The force contains about 500 warriors and barbarians.

 

[ashockney]

500 warriors insight

I've read the FRCS, The Unapproachable East, and the Spellbound boxed set cover to cover on Rashemen and Thay, more times than I care to acknowledge (since I've been running a campaign in the region). I can't believe I overlooked that statement! That's an extremely poignant insight. If the "standing army" in Mulsantir is 500 of 4848, then it could be reasonsed that the "standing army" would be roughly comparable for the rural areas surrounding the city, and throughout Rashemen. This is 10.31%. To extrapolate this theory, using my numbers above, the area of Mulsantir, and surrounding rural settlements (combined population of 44,068 * 10.31% = 4,543). In theory, the standing army capable of rising to the defense of Rashemen in and around Mulsantir would be a force of approximately 4,543. These armies would be largely made up of Warriors and Barbarians, in light and medium armor, with little to no cavalry. Certainly a higher "percentage" of the population in a warlike position than most medieval fantasy settings would share.

The big remaining question would be how do you extrapolate a "militia" component, as a reserve to the armies? How much bigger can this army get? Twice it's size? Four times?

Silveras, as a quick note. I absolutely LOVE your thread about the different supplements available to support this type of thing. It is in part responsible for my contemplating such an endeavor. In light of some of the things I'm trying to accomplish, what product might you recommend to facilitate such a battle? Fields of Blood? (It seems to have gotten your best review thus far.)

 

[Unseelie]

I've read the FRCS, The Unapproachable East, and the Spellbound boxed set cover to cover on Rashemen and Thay, more times than I care to acknowledge (since I've been running a campaign in the region). I can't believe I overlooked that statement! That's an extremely poignant insight. If the "standing army" in Mulsantir is 500 of 4848, then it could be reasonsed that the "standing army" would be roughly comparable for the rural areas surrounding the city, and throughout Rashemen. This is 10.31%.

My military history is sadly, rusty, but 10% is generally a good number to work from.

If nothing else, consider that 'decimate' means to 'kill one in ten'...

 

[BrooklynKnight]

For the record, I guess i was wrong. :-D

Though to my credit I didnt have the book with me to come up with those stats :-/

And in MY world (like it matters) those would be the numbers hehe.

 

[Storminator]

Don't forget to add in the spirits as well. The land of Rasheman will rise up to repulse the Thayans.

IMC (an evil Thayan campaign, that just touched on attacking Rasheman before we moved), I also used the ley-line rules from Heroes of High Favor: Elves. It lets Rashemi throw spell support thru the whole land from safe locations.

PS

 

[Silveras]

I've read the FRCS, The Unapproachable East, and the Spellbound boxed set cover to cover on Rashemen and Thay, more times than I care to acknowledge (since I've been running a campaign in the region). I can't believe I overlooked that statement! That's an extremely poignant insight. If the "standing army" in Mulsantir is 500 of 4848, then it could be reasonsed that the "standing army" would be roughly comparable for the rural areas surrounding the city, and throughout Rashemen. This is 10.31%. To extrapolate this theory, using my numbers above, the area of Mulsantir, and surrounding rural settlements (combined population of 44,068 * 10.31% = 4,543). In theory, the standing army capable of rising to the defense of Rashemen in and around Mulsantir would be a force of approximately 4,543. These armies would be largely made up of Warriors and Barbarians, in light and medium armor, with little to no cavalry. Certainly a higher "percentage" of the population in a warlike position than most medieval fantasy settings would share.

The big remaining question would be how do you extrapolate a "militia" component, as a reserve to the armies? How much bigger can this army get? Twice it's size? Four times?

Silveras, as a quick note. I absolutely LOVE your thread about the different supplements available to support this type of thing. It is in part responsible for my contemplating such an endeavor. In light of some of the things I'm trying to accomplish, what product might you recommend to facilitate such a battle? Fields of Blood? (It seems to have gotten your best review thus far.)

In a "standard" setting, the militia might be as large as the main force. Using that as a base is not unreasonable.

Glad you're enjoying the thread. Maybe it will start a trend, and some other threads comparing similar supplements will appear. It helped that a lot of these came out near-simultaneously, though.

I am still reading the Mass Combat rules in FoB, but they seem very solid. It might take you a while to come up with unit stats and numbers of units, though. Of course, that is true for ANY of them, but with the variations allowed in Fields of Blood, it is a bit moreso. FoB also has two more advantages: Realm magic rules, that would fit well with the "land rising against the invaders" and the witches hurling spells from far away concepts (as Storminator pointed out), AND it already has some elements that account for Barbarian-cultures vs. standard D&D culures. The problem is likely to be the same one I am facing... I think FR is mapped at 1 hex = 1"=30 miles, like my world, and reconciling that to FoB's 12-mile hexes is a little challenging.

 

[ConnorSB]

Ahhh, I love these boards...