As I’m running three campaigns currently (organising online in these times of plague is easier than physically coordinating my players who live across the stretches of England and work a multitude of different careers….) and in two of them (Brumaire and Sea Wolves) the players have reached the ‘domain game’ level, possessing NPC retainers, armed forces and titled power themselves.
I spent a lot of time working on a stripped down war-game style of play for working on battles, but I think it runs up against the problem that D&D is a team game and some players simply do not enjoy this kind of play, and any strict set of rules will run up against the boundless power of player imagination. How does Hypnotic Pattern or Fog Cloud effect warfare? It’s easier to adjudicate this on a case-by-case basis that aim at a systematising philosophy, especially if I want warfare to retain a cinematic, personal tone. The clash is between the Player Characters and their NPC enemies, with personal stakes, not the impersonal struggle of square abstract units. I want to zoom the camera in to a personal experience of the battlefield: I want my players to stop and smell the gunpowder and entrails.
War has erupted in Brumaire, and I want to ponder what warfare is like in this setting and that of Sea Wolves, in order to better plan out the battles to come. Whilst both steal liberally from historical inspirations, the fantastical elements have to be accommodated: this is not medieval stasis.
Brumaire
The armies of Brumaire are grounded in their social structure. Warfare is primarily – and traditionally - fought with a mix of forces:
The Marmelukes – genetically modified slave-soldiers, granted limited language and capacity to feel – form the professional core of most militaries. They spend their lives in drill and train greatly, and having been bred stronger, fitter and more enduring than humans, they are a formidable force in melee combat. They also take on the professional soldiering roles of guardsmen, sappers, foragers and the like.A century before the campaign, the victor would often be the force that would arm and breed an ample force of Marmelukes. This expense was considerable, and greatly favoured powerful magnates with extensive estates and centralised power around the king.
With the expansion of cheaper and more dependable firearms, militia-units have become more integral to warfare, especially as conscripting vast numbers of ordinary humans with firearms can swell the size of an army considerably and cheaply. This has lead to a rapid expansion of the power of cities and their rulers, and feeds directly into Brumaire’s current political context: a popular revolution has stuttered into civil war between the Faith-Directorate and various aristocratic forces. Professional human soldiers are increasingly important for the maintenance and firing of large artillery and cannonry – this is considered more expensive and more fallible than magical armaments, and is mainly used by the Faith-Directorate who lack magical support.
The Greatest Estate – Brumaire’s aristocracy – offer both leadership and magical support to these other forces. Whilst many bear the title of ‘Knight’, they often rely heavily on sorcerous might as strength of arms – and it is this education in magical combat that underlies their power. This is expensive and exclusive to that social class. Often, groups of the Greatest Estate will convoke extremely powerful magic to devastate the battlefield. As a result, skirmishing infantry with firearms and cavalry will often seek to harry and kill the enemies’ aristocratic forces. Due to the sheer danger of magically-capable individuals, they are essentially given no quarter on the battlefields – something that has made war between Brumaire’s aristocrats rare – defeated families are often enough massacred without ceremony on the field of battle. Those means those with extensive families – such as the House of Vallingford – have a considerable resource to draw upon.
The Courts of the Fey fight seldom in human wars (although they are often their victims) and fight in a multitude of styles – a different post will go into this. They rely much more on individual prowess and skill and tend to see warfare as a means of bringing many champions to each other – a battle is a multitude of duels. To this end, they often see strategic aims (the conquest of a territory, or the capture of a river ford, or the destruction of farmland) as essentially meaningless if the great champions of their enemy were beaten. Thus, even whilst they have lost great swathes of land to human colonisation, they tend to see many of these wars as Fey victories. The Court of Winter, currently involved in war alongside the PCs, fights in a way similar to Steppe people’s – massive mobility organised on tribal lines, with the addition of extensive supernatural help (where Winter’s army rides, Winter follows…). This makes them extremely formidable on campaign, and it is only their extremely modest numbers and perpetual internal internecine struggles that weaken them. They have little interest in siege craft, and will seek to force pitched battle.
The primary enemy of the PC, King Fredegar of the House of Vallingford, resembles a normal aristocratic army except in that he also commands a considerable number of auxiliary forces and Fey mercenaries – these are often used as skirmishers and not part of the professional core of his armies. He also possesses, and makes use of, extensive artillery. Whilst his forces are formidable, he is used to drawn-out, lengthy war, and tends towards a cautious approach - borne of his endless campaigns against Winter.
