I'm planning for my Kaldoric Succession Crisis, and the military dimensions in particular, and I'm wondering about some of the strategical elements of warfare on Hârn.

I'm going to simplify and assume 1 knight (HH or MH) & 1 squire (MH or LH) per manor, 1 bachelor/household knight per manor knight, and 1 yeoman or man-at-arms (but using the HârnManor distribution: 50% LF, 20% MF, 20% LB, 10% LH) per 600 acres. Militia is 1 LF (probably actually unarmored) per household for defense only.

It's stated (and the HMG parent occupation table supports) that bachelor knights outnumber landed knights 3:1, but I'm assuming less because otherwise the Earl of Gardiren in the below example would have 231 bachelor knights (for a total of 385 knights, compared to 241 yeomen/men-at-arms and 120 guards).

I'm not sure what ratios are actually good: should a Hârnic army have a 50/50 split of knights and infantry? I can always change my assumptions.

So the Earl of Gardiren can call on 77 knights, 77 squires, 77 bachelor knights, and 241 yeomen or men-at-arms, plus 120 guards (probably split like yeomen and men-at-arms), and 2890 militia.

If attacking, what proportion of this force is the Earl even going to want to raise?

BattleLust suggest the average muster is 60%, which I assume is of the maximum. So he is probably limited to 138 cavalry (knights and squires) and 145 men-at-arms, plus any mercenaries raised. Is the remainder going to be sufficient to defend their fiefs (probably mostly by supplementing the garrisons of Castle Gardiren and the keeps) ?

If Earl Curo marches on Baron Pierstel at Tonot, he will probably have time to raise a good number of his forces (36 cavalry, 35 men-at-arms 404 militia) to supplement the 40 guards at Tonot Keep. Is all that militia going to be raised? Investing a keep protected by 515 men with 283 men seems like a bad idea, although those 400 militia probably don't count for a lot - certainly, the defenders wouldn't be able to make an effective sally when their "real" troops are outnumbered 4:1, would they?

How large of a force would you need to invest a keep or castle anyway? You're going to need a force large enough that a small muster from the surrounding area isn't going to be enough to defeat your siege force (combined with a sally from the defenders), but how much is that likely to be?

More broadly, and especially if a larger area is attacked (for instance, Earl Dariune wars between Kiban and Tashal against various other pretenders), how much are you going to split your forces? Individual barons can raise something like 30-60 knights and 30-60 men-at-arms, and in defense that's what you'll face (along with 350-650 militia, theoretically).

Is a baron or earl on the defensive even going to garrison the entire force in the keep/castle? If the enemy invests the fortification, those troops will be needed (although a large force in the field could lift the siege), but what about protecting the manors? If the enemy splits up to raid the countryside, small forces backed by militia could face it, but if the enemy moves in one (or even 2-3) large forces, small forces may be worthless.

Would someone in Earl Dariune's position split his forces to be strategically flexible and able to invest multiple keeps at once, or keep one force that can invest a keep powerfully and defeat any comers in the field?

Just from some cursory math, it looks clear that alliances will be critical - and not to create huge super-armies, but in order to create power blocks that can campaign in multiple regions at once. If Earl Dariune needs to campaign around but Earl Caldeth opposes him, he'll need support (like the Earldom of Osel) to fight on two fronts. And because of the widely distributed nature of Kaldorian/Hârnic holdings, and shifting allegiances (especially of the Sheriffs, intentionally split around the realm), you're going to need to leave strong levies at home. You can't pull up your stakes and abandon a siege every time someone invests one of your own holdings.

If you stick to Canon figures and the historical/wargaming strength of keeps (let alone castles) no one is going anywhere fast in a campaign on Harn. Harn has Stone keeps and castles and quite a balanced body politic (in Kaldor especially). Anybody projecting their power bumps into an 'enemy' fortress sooner rather than later..and opens themselves to a counter attack in the field.

This is the reality of fortresses I hear you cry; and is true...but on Harn never has so much been owned by so few Without gunpowder and Trebuchets (?) a forced seige I would suggest is an expense that few 'armies' on Harn can seriously consider. (Even with trebuchets and undermining...see the seige of Rochester castle or Ironclad the film). A keep can also be held by 'soldiers/standing army'...those not needed elsewhere..it does not take vast coffers to arm and well train 10 t0 20 men.

As for ratio's...10 to one or more is oft touted...but for me this can be misleading. I would say this is a minimum to effectively maintain and press a seige. IE disencourage a muster and small local counter-attack. It does not mean musters or small counter attacks will not take place. It does not mean that the fortress will fall either. Your hundred men still need to knock down a lot of stone in some fortresses...starvation is the usual route.

Alliegiances are as you say the only real answer..and thus counter allegiances...aaah things are getting more realistic and complicated...so do not forget mercernaries..in Canon Curo and Minarsas both have war chests for mercenaries and one (Curo I think) is explicitly courting 'The kings Men', exiles in lythia who are experts in seige warfare.

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

An idea forms: if the trade of food into Azadmere is disrupted (say, by one or two harvests partly ruined by men being away from their fields and by warfare and pillage destroying fields), the Khuzdul might have to pick a side. AFAIK they are dependent on trade (through Kaldor) for food, yes? A civil war might easily last a few years, enough to worry the Khuzdul seriously. If the Khuzdul do pick a side, they might win the war just by sending a small contingent of siege engineers to support their chosen side (i.e. the one who makes the most concessions to Azadmere, possibly offering regular tribute in food).

About those trebuchets, though: wouldn't they be a facet of Hârnic warfare? Siege engines are an ancient idea, and it appears that they were used in 11th century Europe (traction trebuchets possibly as early as the 6th century, counterweight possibly by 1097). They were definitely in use by the early 12th century. They seem much more reasonably "period" than a lot of Hârnic canon weaponry (bastard swords and battleswords, ball & chain, estoc, etc.).

I agree, though, that sieges are almost certain to be a matter of starvation, which can take years.

Your observation about stone keeps and castles does make me note that with the size of armies as it is, shouldn't there be fewer full keeps and more motte-and-bailey arrangements? I suppose a lot of more militaristic manors would be set up that way (although none of the manors I've seen in fanon material seem to be!).

The population vs Keeps has been well discussed before here...I beleive Harn has a much (IE ridiculously) higher ratio then even the most ardent castle building periods on Terra.

Personally I do not downgrade the keeps to reflect this..but look for an explanation. In Kaldor Dwarven influence may be cited..the presence of horde types in Gargun and Barbarians may also explain frequent fortification... Also the influence of intelligensia IMHO explains frequent stone fortification, with people in Melderyn a long time ago realising the best way to make Harn peaceful was to Dam the stream of potential internecine strife with castles. Whilst this makes enemies of Melderyn defensively powerful; it does not really mean they threaten Melderyn.

As a consequence I think the first round at least of a civil war in Kaldor should end with the Lords retreating rain sodden into their own fortresses muttering ironically "..bloody castles"

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I figure that most of the "Batchelor" knights are employed in that role.
A single Lord who personally holds multiple manors would still be required to hire extra HH.
Older Knights would be bailiffs etc.
Only a few of the Batchelors would be available for hire.
The actual ratio of Foot to Horse would be at least 2:1 with a good amount of Horse being Scouts or Non-combatants.

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

I suppose I may assume that some bailiffs do not also serve as the knight for the manor, which would indeed cut down on the number of bachelor knights mustered (as another bachelor knight must be hired in the bailiff's stead). I don't really want to go into the fief lists and figure out separate counts for manors held by bailiffs, etc. But with the squires added (granted, a lot of them might serve as those scouts, I suppose?), a 2:1 ratio isn't doable without a lot of mercenaries, raising the militia (not done for offensive campaigns), or using the HârnManor yeoman rates (which I've rejected). If the Earldom of Neph has 77 manors, that means to me 77 knights. I can probably cut down on squires, though - bailiffs aren't likely to have them. Maybe 50% fighting squires? 25%? That'd put Neph at something like 100-115 knights & squires from manors, with 360 foot (including the guard companies; I figure a lot of the knights will be reinforcing those anyway), so I could shoot for 60-80 bachelor knights at the most. Admittedly, that would be an average of 16 for each of the Earl and his Barons, which is almost the size of their garrisons!

I'm going to need to jiggle these numbers around some more, I think. I suppose 10 household knights for each major noble might be more than enough, and could be thought to include manors where the eldest son is already a knight in his own right, and so on.

I think a few things to factor in here - Harnic forces, based on the number of Bachelor knights indicated my the number of manors, seem woefully short of the foot troops that made up the majority of most middle ages armies.

I think one thing to look at - the true difinition of a squire. Are they squires at arms, or merely attendants? I think the idea of looking at them as merely attendants figures in much better. Though Battlelust allows about 60-70% of the summoned knights to have an additonal knight at their disposal IIRC?

I don't think you should do both, fighting squires AND the additional knights per manor, and I think the second option makes the most sense.

Another option for a mustered force used to attack (as opposed to one defending one's territory, where the militia need to perform their civic duty) is the idea of a force recruited from the normal militia, but paid as mercenaries.

One option also that Redenton and I both favor - a free (freemen) vs an unfree (serf) militia. The free militia would be equipped better, though equipped better probably means spear and shield, not armour, probably a knife as well as opposed to grainflails, pitchforks, falcastra and the like. I look at the unfree militia as somone you really don't even bring to a battlefield, but would do more the work such as foraging perhaps, working on upgrading of a fortress, and maybe trow some rocks down in a siege.

A third thing to think about is not all will answer the summons. An old C&S supplement had some great mechanics for this, where the knights would turn out pretty well at 100% (excepting the few that might be ill or just not reached by the summons, coming out to about 95%), landed people like yeomen might turn out around 75%, and militia would turn out about 55%. Likely the King would at a ninimum fine those that were not able to be there, but perhaps not the local militia.

There are some variables as to who shows, based on the popularity of the leader, popularity of the war, a war of defense vs. a foreign war, etc., and numbers of over 100% could be achieved, this meaning those that already served their feudal time that year or had paid scutage are volunteering.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Not sure where the 77 is coming from.
The numbers I get (I too am planning a Kaldoran Civil War);
Earl of Neph:64 Landed Knights on 83 freeholds. This would be a full muster of 43x HH, 40 MH, 64 LH(Squires).
[IMHO most of the squires would act as messengers, pages, or valets, more than combatants]
Batchelor Knights would not likely have squires, though young Journeyman Heralders, Huntsmen, Sergeants, etc. might act as the knights "Second".
This would be a ratio of Batchelors to Landed Knights of 102 (83+19) to 64. In theory that would leave approximately 90 Knight batchelors left "To Hire", though these might already be employed with Fighting Orders, Royal Guard, etc.
This would also muster up to 432 LF Yeomen. This creates a Foot to Horse Ratio of nearly 3 to 1.

My actual Yeoman numbers are 13xLH, 26xLB, 39xSB, 63xMF, 111x LF [totalling 252]

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

If Landless knights outnumber Landed 3:1, would that not mean there are 64x3 = 192 Bachelors? And indeed, some would be in fighting orders and Royal Guard.

And I'm not sure about taking the 19 bailliffed manors and making them Bailliffs. I don't think it's required for a Bailiff to be a knight.



When you divide acreage by 600 to determine yoemen, you usually come up short which would expalain the difference between actual and suggested.

However, I believe it is battlelust (or Hmanor?) that states that a lord will have a yeoman per 600 acres, though the manorlord may hire men at arms to live on the manor to make up the difference between required an actual yeomen.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Good on you for bringing this up, but I think you completely underestimate the importance and variability here. The first test every claimant will face is whether their own vassals will back them. Every vassal will make two calculations: Is the claim reasonably valid, and does the claimant have a reasonable chance of winning. Some vassals will place their loyalty to who they perceive as the true king over their loyalty to their lord. And most vassals will refuse to back a clear loser. Instead the better men among them will advise their lord to throw in with a stronger claimant, and the lesser of them will simply not show up.

The sheriffs have it even harder. The knights in their territories are not "theirs", they are the King's. Whereas the sheriffs probably can count on those cronies that they appointed as bailiff-of-the-hundreds, some bailiff's appointments predated the sheriff's arrival and thus are not likely to rally to their boss' banner. As for the knights who hold manors from the king, the sheriff is nothing more than a tax collector to them. IMHO, the most important factor in determining who "wins" the KSC will be where all the knights attached to royal lands take their lances.

BTW, the reason for the plethora of keeps seems pretty obvious. You can't compare Harn to Medieval Europe in this regard, because Harn was never part of the Roman Empire. Most of Harn's settlement patterns were set in the era of pre-Lothrimic petty states, and most of Harn's keeps originated either as citadels of these tiny kingdoms, or imperial or royal keeps intended to pacify these areas. The Romans did not build keeps to pacify little kingdoms. They built cities to control large provinces. European keeps were built later and for completely different reasons, and thus we shouldn't be surprised that the distribution is completely different.

There actually a good handful of reasons why a knight may not make a muster. He may be in very ill health, could be on an errand where he does not get the summons - may get the summons but in not enough time, etc. etc.

But with yeomen and more particularily militia, there may well be and probably will be many draft dodgers. They may decide death in war is more important than a loss of status or fines, death was rarely the sentence.



Ah, the amount of time spent buidling stone keeps still does not make sense, unless Harn had a much greater population around the time of Lothrim.

Rome built fortresses, not just cities, mostly of wood. I'd say most Harnic keeps should be wood.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

You have persuaded me to review my approach to squires, and I do suppose it makes more sense; squires fighting at men-at-arms is probably a later medieval development, when they were likely to be grown noble men who could not afford knighthood? You don't want "unfinished" fighters on the field (you want them to stay alive and become the next generation of knights), and you're not going to be buying armor to equip a growing teen boy.

So, I'm now going with "Pendragon squires" - they wait at the rear or with the baggage, and bring you a new horse at need and opportunity, etc.



Checking BL, HH knights have a 35% chance of an extra knight/squire-at-arms (25% HH, otherwise MH), MH knights have 20% (MH). I'm going to use this and just average it to 25%. So, for every 4 knights, add one knight for this.



I think I'll go with this as well, yes, although now I'll need to figure out the numbers. From HMG, it's a 650:180 ratio of serfs:freemen, which comes out to a rough 25% freemen out of the households. That'll work, and HârnManor even agrees.

And I'll probably be using the BattleLust muster table, probably, where the average (7 on 2d6) muster is 60%, with 5% segments (so minimum 35%, maximum 85%), modified at my discretion for circumstances.



Working from Kaldor (CG 5610), on Kaldor 21 I get 77 manors (total acreage 144,755 and 2,890 households) for the Earldom of Neph. I'm not counting individual knight/bailiff manors, because I'm working "top down" with my assumptions: the Earldom of Neph owes the Crown 1 knight per manor, and it's up to the Earl and his vassals to manage their land and contracts to meet this requirement. The muster percentages account for the occasional failures.

With the 25% figure, that's 96 knights total. Although, you are correct that I need to account for bailiffs, Fighting Orders, and now the extra 25%, so I can probably expect no more than to double the number of knights here. I don't want to go to the effort of actually counting the number of knight fiefs vs. bailiffs, etc., honestly.

I'm using the "yeoman/600 acres" figures, rather than the higher rates in Kaldor which conflict with other sources (I incorrectly implied above that HârnManor was deviating; it's not). That comes to 241.

Can you explain where you get your numbers? I like the 3:1 foot:horse ratio much better.



This is true; but who supports who goes beyond the muster percentages, and into the intrigue/larger campaign structure. I'm mostly interested in the strategic level of warfare. (Commanding armies in the field, from battle to battle, deciding what keep to invest and with how many men, etc.) Although you do bring up a great point about the ability of sheriffs to muster their knights. I'm going to try to balance accounting for this factor with avoiding even more obsessively detailed work...

I'm well into writing up my "who supports who and how their plots will change it" document, using Thonahexus #9 for help (but keeping my own ideas of the factions/power blocks, generally). I've pretty much decided the factions will form around Conwan, the three bastards, and the earls, with some merging and splitting as the war goes on.

I have excavated a couple of Roman fortresses... and they were definitely made of stone .
Yes, there were certainly wooden ones too but many 100s of stone.

If a population (or a charismatic leader/group) decides that it is important enough to build something, human populations will, even quite small populations. Cf. large stone churches and cathedrals when most of the population, even manor lords, were living in wooden buildings; prehistoric land complexes including stone circles, avenues, henge monuments such as round Salisbury Plain and Orkney; long barrows and barrow fields.
It all depends on what a culture feels is important.
I would venture that the need to have a solid place of refuge from gargun swarms in addition to knowledge from/work by Khuzdul masons is sufficient to explain the stone keeps.

It probably did. As has often been noted, Harn is underpopulated and seemingly still recovering from the Red Death. (In Europe, a century after the plague the population was still off by about a third. It didn't start to recover until the 16th century.)



Of course it did. But Rome's primary means of pacifying new territories was through the establishment of cities. They maintained large forces in a few places, dispatching them as necessary. Obviously Harn's conquerers - the Corani and the early Kaldoric states - preferred to distribute their forces more granularly. They apparently made use of the fortifications that they found, and it is notable that the pre-Lothrimic kingdoms in Kaldor are all roughly the size of a modern barony or hundred. We don't have the same information available for the pre-Corani West, but there is no reason not to believe that the settlement pattern wasn't similar. The pattern suggests that a sort of proto-feudalism was in place, which was disrupted by the Corani and Lothrim, but re-established in the East, as least, by the Kaldoric kings.

As for the wood/stone debate . . . generally these things are determined by the availability of materials more than anything else. Given a choice, rulers prefer stone, and Harn apparently has plenty of good building stone available. (Lots of easy-to-work sedimentary rock, it seems.)

I also include the 5 Caers (Gardiren, Yeged, etc.) in the calculations, which would make it 82.
I'll have to recheck my charts to find where that extra manor is. But the ratios still hold.

I use something a little different to calculate Yeomen and their types.

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

Funny thing: at 77 * 1.25 ~= 96 knights, this matches up exactly to the acreage/1500 figure from HârnManor (144,755 acres in Neph produces 96 knights). I wonder if that's accident or design?

And I should be accounting for the Caers myself, yes, even if each mainly produces a "command unit".

Also, since I'm now obsessed with getting the numbers straight, Pendeth is listed wrong on Kaldor 21. It includes 13 manors (9 knight, 3 bailiff, 1 Curo) plus the keep, not 12 manors and the keep.

More egregiously, Setrew doesn't have 21 manors, it has 26 (15 knight, 7 bailiff, 4 reeve), and the keep.

Gardiren isn't 20, it's 22 (11 knight, 8 bailiff, 3 reeve).

And finally, Yeged has 15 manors (6 knight, 4 bailiff, 5 reeve), not 10.

Now, as Reeve manors (or "manors", as they presumably have no actual manorhouse) are mostly under 500 acres, and only 7 in Kaldor exceed 800 acres (the largest two, both in Minarsas, being 990 and 1130), they may get excluded in Kaldor 21 since they wouldn't produce knights, but they're presumably included in the acreage from which military service for the tenants-in-chief is calculated, so they'd be covered by knights bachelor. Not including reeve manors in the Kaldor 21 manor figure would explain some of the discrepancy, but the table would still be off by a total of 2 manors for Neph.

Also, that one Curo manor in Pendeth might have been counted under Gardiren, I guess. That'd still be 1 manor off.

Or am I missing something else here? I'd really prefer not to go through all the fief tables myself to get the right figures (I do have them all copied into a ODS spreadsheet I'm Ctrl+Fing for reeves, etc.), because I'm honestly not that concerned with a 2.6% error, but I'd love an explanation if I made a mistake...

Also, I realize now that I can rig the foot:horse ratio with "knight equivalents" (from BattleLust); some knights, and especially some bailiffs, will be paying scutage, or have contracts that allow them to provide men-at-arms/yeomen in place of a knight, and so on. Each knight equivalent is five yeomen in BL (randomly rolled on a table, which I may or may not do).

Edit: Any tips for figuring out the urban militia numbers for Tashal (2280 households) ? Obviously they'll all be "free" militia, but what portion of them will be of quality comparable to the freeman militia of rural holdings? I'm willing to ignore/fudge the particulars for castle towns, but I think Tashal is large enough to have to consider; and I'm going to make it a central element of the military campaigns, with Koris Harabor staging an early coup with the support of the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Advocate.

I know there were certainly stone Roman fortresses, but were outnumbered by the wooden ones, though I do not know the ratio.

I wrote:



Pokep wrote:



I don't know the percentage the Red Death originally killed on Harn - I am not sure if it is out there somewhere. But we do have this:



This would seem to be no where near as great of a problem as the bubonic plague or Black Death. According to medieval historian Philip Daileader in 2007:



45-50% percent vs 10-20%, so the Red Death was nothing close to the Black Death.



I would think the nature of gargun swarms and barbarians (Many castles were built during the time of the migration wars) would indicate more of a building of wood fortifications, not stone. Gargun and Barbarians are hardly siege experts, and a solid wooden fortification would do well against them. Accomany this with the fact you need MANY fortified areas, and the need for both cost and expediency would push towards wooden fortifications similar to Norman or earlier hill forts, not stone keeps and castles.



Harn has a lot more forest and woods than did England. So there is a plentiful supply of wood. Castles would probably take 5-20 years to build, maybe 5 for a keep to at least 20 for Burzyn. And corresponding manpower. I don't know how long it takes to build a wooden fort, but my guess is it could be as little as 1/10 th the time, and of course thereby a correspondingly lower amount of labor.

And these estimations are based upon terran castles, who had a much larger population supporting them.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

THe true questions here - most impirtantly, is Tashal required to provide troops? I believe HM Canon has no feudal requirements for towns. That actually suprises me, particularily in the case of a free town. A town held by the King or other lord will have a portion of the "profits" paid to that lord - who can then hire troops with this money. A free town provides little to the lord. And a town owned by an Earl does nothing to enhance the crown's warchest.

What makes more sense to me - An "owned" town provides X amount to the King or Earl. If it is not held by the King, there is a feudal obligation required.

If you look at a town as "bailliffed", a rural manor provides 3d per acre I believe to the owning lord? If an 1800 acre has about 40 households, roughly average, it is providing 5400d in revenue to the owner, or about 135d per household. Perhaps take residents of a trown/city, divide by 5, multiply by 135, so a 5000 person town provides maybe 135,000 annually in revenue to it's owner?

If looking as to how many "troops" it should supply to meet an obligation if a freetown, maybe a formula like this - 40 rural households provide a knight and 3 yeomen for 40-60 days. Perhaps the requirements of a 5000 person town would be that of 1000 households/40, or 25 manors? If that, then that would be a requirement to provide 25 knights and 75 men-at arms, or perhaps a lesser ratio of knights on the 1/5 ratio, maybe 1-2 squadrons of knights (10-20) and 100 or 150 men at arms?

Of course, all of these are rough ideas, and this would vary greatly no doubt from city to city, based upon the wealth and population of that city, not just a percent of the population.

Historically, cities were great sources of local "mercenaries". The might be troops the crown can access, but must pay them as mercenaries. Of course, if the towns are not providing feudal services, they would be paying a tidy sum to the kings coffers every year to make the hiring of such mercenaries more realistic.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

re: Red Death. Why would you assume Shorkyne was typical for the plague mortality? It was only the most distant from the source and least urbanized region in Venarive. Do you have a better explanation for the underpopulation of Venarive, which is not limited to Harn?

re: What do kings get from cities? Markets. Without them, the nobles have no way to convert the produce of their manors into goods of any quality. The charters for towns were quite generous, as the benefits of thriving markets were obvious even to the most obtuse rulers.
I wouldn't compare a town to a bailiffed manor. They are completely different things - the latter being fully a part of the feudal structure, the former being virtually a foreign body.

Since canon really doesn't say much on the topic, I would personally assume that the two cities provide no troops, and whatever taxes they pay is already accounted for. Tashal is politically powerful, and probably pays not much more than what it costs to cover its own defense. Kiban is probably a money-sink for the Earl, as the walls are still under construction and the city is not yet all that large or successful.

Harn is further from the source and even less urbanized, so following this logic it should have a lower mortality rate. And in absence of any hard numbers for plague mortality, the only numbers being that of Shorkyne, it is the only basis we have to look at.

Harn would be similar to England during the times of plague, though less urbanized and more of a backwater compared to NW Lythia. It would seem it would run similar numbers therefore to England during the Black Death, and Englad had some of the lowest mortality rates, running 10-20% during the black plague.



Yeah. That's the way whomever give the poulation numbers decided to do it . And If I recall, the lower poulation numbers on Harn were designed to make PC play a more meaningful rule, and make Harn more "manageable".

But the Red Death per canon was not anywhere near as bad as the Bubonic plague in Europe.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

As I understand it, medieval warfare was often better described as 'siege warfare'. Grand clashes of armies happened, but most wars were decided either failed sieges or successful sieges.

A lot depends on how good you want harnic siege engineers to be. I'd argue they'd be pretty good, but if needed a GM could say otherwise without butchering canon much.

And while clashes of armies was not common, it did happen, and could on Harn too.

And sieges were often not decided by the classic assualt on the walls, but the assualting army camping outside until the defenders surrendered, or the beseiging army left.

And the causes of a failed siege were often plague breaking out among the men, or desertion of the army, often over pay in arrears.

The beseiged often surrendered due to plague as well, a shortage of food, or in many situations a traitor opening the gates (maybe not a traitor inthe true sense of the word but very possibly a non military type being tired of starving and wanting to end it.



Looking to canon, they are not very advanced compared to their terran counterparts of the 11th-12th centuries. Apparently there are no trebuchets on Harn. This however does coincide a bit with the Canon idea of Harn as being a backwater.

And in all actuality, the taking of a stone keep on Harn would be very difficult by assault. You need to be somewhere in the realm of 10/1 to have a reasonable chance of assaulting a fortification like a castle - and to field a force large enough to defeat a garrison of 100+ would be very difficult for a Harnic King. Not that there are not enough troops - but the cost of such an endeavor, coupled with the fact that you are expending your fedual levy for the season, and if in a true war you are concentrating your forces in one spot leaving less available for defense an counter attacks, much less even denuding it of people to "police" the lands makes this a very costly endeavor in money and men.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

This has been out forward before; I forget which thread. Yes the Khuzdul/Khuzan do import food each year. Opinion is divided on whether they need to and if they do whether they would let the Jarin of Habe etc starve

I seem to remember there being a sort of consensus that they can hide in their hills for a while (and a while being a long time to a dwarf). Whilst the reality of Azadmere's desire and ability to intervene such is open to question....the belief of such an ability in the minds Kaldorans I beleive is not. In other words; the human facets of any war would be clamouring to court the dwarfs for their engineering skills. However; IMHO, as it would be poor diplomacy to cut off of such a source of expertise, I do not think a civil war in Kaldor would result in Azadmere going hungry. I think that the Human lords would would let their own people starve before starving Azadmere.

From the Dwarven standpoint; clumsy (unilateral) intervention has consequences. If they do intervene however I think existing relationships (translate as loyalty) need to heavily considered as the Dwarves are explained in Canon as being habitual/traditional/loyal. It would have to be a mithril lined deal IMHO to make them leap allegiences from...Curo? and latterly Kiban? To be honest I forget who they deal with

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Probably correct here

Reminds me a bit of the American Civil war, where the South was pushing for European Intervention, one of the spurring ideas for France and England was the lack of exported cotton from the South due to the Union Blockade.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....