Musings on Warfare [Brumaire]

 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. 

A Humoural Theory of the Undead - Sanguine and Melancholic Undead

In the world of Sea Wolves undead are classified according to the science of the Four Humours. An Imperial scholar explains below:

 Any Imperial Scholar of note must be familiar with the prevailing Humoural Theory of the Undead. Whilst less civilised peoples may believe in such discredited theories as 'negative energy' or 'spontaneous generation' as their means of explaining the existence of the Undead, it is simple reason that the a serious excess or deficit in any one humour will lead to the rising or transformation into an undead creature. Whilst the animating humour determines much of the nature of the creature risen, all undead are united in that they recoil in horror from articles of the faith, and flee before the Eye of the Authority. Thus does the Authority mark them as anathema, to be cast down and destroyed.

Undead can, of course, be animated by sorcery, independent of these types. Mostly they are Melancholic or Choleric Undead, trapped in their remains by sorcery to do the bidding of apostate magi.


The Sanguine Undead - Undead of Blood. 
Known also as ghouls or vampirii sanguinis, sanguine undead arise from an excess of blood in the body. This malady can arise piecemeal - excessive unclean and lustful thoughts or the consumption of too much rich food over a life time - or through one horrifying act, such as the consumption of human flesh or blood.

They are characterised by being of the body. Even in their undead state, they will desire to despoil maidens, empty wine cellars and devour their enemies. Those of the labouring classes will become ghouls: hideous, bloated, grasping and corpulent, whose one joy is the heady devouring of human flesh, either fresh or rotten. Those of the gentry become sanguine vampires,  more elegantly drinking only the blood of their prey. Just as the gentry might command the labourer, oft the genteel sanguine vampire might enjoy the homage of several ghouls.

Being of flesh and blood, Sanguine undead can be vanquished like any mortal man by sword and shot and they have no specific weaknesses. However, their rapacious appetites  also grant them increased strength. As a ghoul gluts himself on flesh, his corpulent and vast body becomes ever more physically strong, until he can catch and tear open his victim with sheer might: breaking through sturdy doors and dragging some unfortunate out into the night in a single action. A sanguine vampire who has sampled a variety of vintages will take something from each: a thought, a memory, a quart-taste of their sorcerous bloodline. A well-fed sanguine vampire is the truest Renaissance man: a swordsman, poet, lover, sorcerer, rapist, cannibal and fiend.

Sanguine undead are not immortal and the Authority has marked them to expire like any mortal man, but the constant infusion of new vitae can keep them roving and hunting for spans of centuries. Troublingly, they can often conceal themselves among the human flock and prey from such a secluded position on all society.

The Melancholic Undead - Undead of Black BileWhen a figure with an excess of black bile passes, they can sometimes rise as Melancholic Undead. This can happen in minutes, weeks or centuries, and none can say what causes the disparity. Some posit that all will one day rise as Melancholic Undead. They are the silent and sure guardians of  forgotten tombs and in the ruins of lost cities. Some are animated bone, treading on calcified feet the perimeter of diminutive tombs. Others are mere spirit, their temporal remains now simply dust, drifting like leaves on the winds around the black and silent depths of their resting-place. We may posit that many thousands such undead occupy their dark, quiet sanctums, awaiting the Eschaton with the same silent patience as stone.

Despite their sure pensivity and seeming passivity, tomb-raiders, gentleman-archaeologists and the occasional desperate body-snatcher may find themselves the victim of Melancholic Undead. When disturbed they will make sure and silent war on interlopers, dragging antique weaponry after them in the dark to drive them from their resting-places. Truly, these undead are not unquiet until man makes them so.
Melancholic undead are hardy and difficult to destroy. Many have noted the broken and shattered remains of vanquished Melancholic undead dragging themselves together to renew their struggle with the living. Holy magic can cast them down, and destruction of the remains by fire or pulverising can end them permanently. Those with no mortal remains are oft anchored to an object of sentiment or importance: destroying this can scatter the apparition permanently.

"What cargo is on that ship?" System neutral random generator

As my Sea Wolves characters have finally got their hands on their very first ship and took to the waves seeking plunder, I needed a way to quickly generate the cargoes of any unfortunate merchant vessel they come across. This generator tries to combine a fair chance of the crushingly mundane for the demands of verisimilitude but during creation I did little to limit my sense of whimsy. ("nine barrels of bloody awful gin each containing a pickled monkey" remains my personal favourite.) Useful if you're running any kind of fantasy Age of Sail adventure, and if you're running something historical nix the supernatural stuff.

Monster Review - Vegepygmy [Volo's Guide to Monsters, p. 197]

The Vegepygmy is an Pulp-y goblin alternative with a dubious name, borne from one of those weird 2e Adventures which was also responsible for the Froghemoth (a much needed addition to a game bursting from every orifice with frog monsters). It has no mythical antecedent but is instead a strange crossbreed of science fiction and pulp tropes - a grubby fungus from beyond the stars looking to set down some mycelium in your heart. Bizarrely, the Vegepygmy has long dwelt in the rather short shadow of the Myconids and Blights. Competition is apparently fierce in the world of CR 1/4 plant men.

Art

A significant improvement on the hideous previous efforts this combines a daring pulp colour scheme with a distinctively alien design. It looks eerily moist and damp and you can imagine its turgid aroma. It moves towards the body horror implied in the description (a mold infested corpse turned ambulatory vector of infection) but doesn't quite dare get there. The 'Thorny' who shares the illustration overawes the Vegepgymy with its impressive vegetable malice, however. WotC's attempt to make Vegepygmies relatable, cute and Disneyfied through the inclusion of Kapalue in the Tomb of Annihilation dilute the scariness of the Vegepygmy further.

Purpose and Tactics 
The basic Vegepygmy is disposable low-level chaff. With an AC of 13 and 9 HP, even a level 1 party will quickly reduce a Vegepygmy to so much disappointing crudités. As a result, Vegepgymies work best as an ambushing force: emerging from the subterranean murk or some brooding overgrown jungle in force with their increased Stealth skill and Plant Camouflage ability. At higher levels, you can season this encounter salad with any number of plant-based allies: either using the Thornies and Vegepygmy chief here included, or Myconids, Blights, Dryads, Treants, Wood Woads and Shambling Mounds. The regeneration will be essentially meaningless in most battles for healing - even a level 1 character should easily dispatch a Vegepygmy in one or two hits. Its power - which will be great at higher levels - is that the Vegepygmies will keep getting up and into the scrap until the team does Fire, Cold or Necrotic damage to them. This will be trivial in a team with several casters but adds an element of puzzle monster to the first encounter with Vegepygmies for your group, helping to differentiate the Vegepygmy from the pack.

The Chief is a weightier foe and his regeneration is likely to keep him fighting for quite some time as a low-level boss monster. The one-off Spore attack is a potentially potent AoE that seems statistically most likely to fizzle as players are unlikely to fail the Constitution check persistently, but it helps jazz up what is otherwise a fairly mundane bruiser monster.

In terms of quests, Vegepygmy lore places them best as a threat to a local region or ecosystem. They could threaten a forest village with infection of them or their animals, or they could be raiding farmlands of other regions for resources of their own.

Fluff

The Vegeygmy fluff is an interesting throw-back to the more eclectic early days of D&D when the occasional spaceship or laser-pistol might slip in to Ye Olde Fantasy Europe without anyone batting an eyelid. Terrified of acknowledging this explicitly, the fluff is very coy about the origins of the Vegepygmy beyond the stars, and only implies that fact. Much of the fluff doesn't relate to something that is gameable: Vegepygmies possess little civilization and can't really communicate, which feels to me like they're being slowly pushed into the 'disposable bad guy not plot hook' category of monsters. In fact, the Vegepygmy is sold short by his own publicist who can't stop waxing lyrical about Russet Mold instead. I would throw all the fluff out and start again, making Vegepygmies either a force of nature with Druidic overtones or a kind of fungal zombie a la The Last of Us and The Girl With all the Gifts. Nothing in the fluff deals with the serious issue I have here: my players would find the Vegepygmy ridiculous. 
Plot Hooks
Grimlin's Trading Company are finding their grain infected with some kind of fungus, causing ergotism and madness. The bodies of those infected have disappeared, and Grimlin suspects some conspiracy against his corporation. They are at a loss as to where this infection comes from, but would like it investigated covertly without any damage to their trading reputation...

In the fetid topsoil of the top-most Underdark caverns a brutal arboreal war is being fought: saplings uprooted, fields despoiled, mulch stolen and plant-men slaughtered, as a Vegepygmy tribal confederation and Myconid Hive-Mind fight a bitter, all-encompassing war. The Vegepygmies, squeezed and battered, seek deliverance from their implacable foe...

Verdict: Despite attempts to give the Vegepygmy something unique to run with, it still feels like an own-brand riff on the more recognisable plant monsters.

Age of Sail Sailing and Ship Combat Rules 5e

With the advent of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, the good people at Wizards of the Coast have released their rules 'Of Ships and the Sea'. I think these rules are really problematic in their attempt to mesh 5e combat with a different game entirely (Why does a ship need an intelligence score if they're always going to have a 0? For the fringe case of a 'magic item possessed ship'?) and it turns the ships into video-games style centrally controlled robots, not the complex little societies and hives they were.

I tried to make a slightly different set aimed at an Age of Sail / Pirate themed campaign world, that of my new campaign Sea Wolves.  Give them a look and shoot me some feedback before they're put out to sea with my new players (almost all D&D virgins).

Ship Combat and Sailing Rules

Sea Wolves - Player Introduction

As I'm moving city in but a few weeks, I need to slow my current campaign (Brumaire) to a plodding, ambulatory speed, and take up a whole new campaign with some friends from university. Below is a draft player introduction for that campaign where all names and details may be subject to change.

Here is my attempt at bringing swashbuckling adventure into 5e: Sea Wolves.

Sea Combat Rules Random generators for Ship Cargo and encounters and weather at sea. You can view the current state of the player's fleet here.

Wizard Subclass - Demon-Summoner 'Goetia' Tradition [5e]

I've always felt that the niche of demonic summoner has long been denied to Player Characters. Whilst PCs can gleefully littler the battlefield with Fey, Undead, Elementals and 36 Dire Weasels, the much more august and storied tradition of summoning and binding Fiends is curiously absent. Xanathar's Guide tried to correct this by adding a slew of demonic summoning spells but almost all of them were hamstrung out of the gate (expensive material components or the summon creatures straight up ignoring you) as being strictly worse that conjuring an elemental or animal. Inspired by the Lesser Key of Solomon and the Ars Geotia, behold its fell majesty:

Goetia Tradition

Student of the Ars Geotica
Your extensive studies have made you highly adept at dealing with extraplanar creatures. Starting at second level, you may use your Intelligence modifier rather than your Charisma modifier when attempting to use Persuasion, Intimidation or Deception on beings with the Fiend, Celestial or Elemental subtype.

Knowledge of the Seals
You are adept at knowing the True Names of Celestials, Fiends and Elementals. Starting at second level, when summoning a variety of Fiend, Celestial or Elemental you have successfully summoned before, you know the True Name already. With a Fiend, Celestial or Elemental you have not previously summoned, you may make a Religion, History or Arcana check to determine whether you know the True Name of the creature - the DC is three times the creatures’ challenge rating.

Binder of Fiends
At sixth level, you add the Summon Lesser Demons spell to your spellbook if it was not there already. When casting the spell, you may choose from the options listed rather than roll a d6, and may choose which creatures appear.

Additionally, each summoned demon will have extra hit points equal to your Wizard level, and adds your proficiency bonus to attack rolls.

Infernal Contract

At tenth level, you add the Infernal Calling spell to your spellbook if it was not there already. You may ignore the component requirement for this spell once per long rest.

 

Penumbra of Royalty
Starting at 14th level, you can use magic to bring either Fiends, Celestials or Elementals under your control, even those summoned by other wizards. Choose either Fiends, Celestials or Elementals - this choice is permanent and cannot be changed. As an action, you can choose one creature of that type that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again. If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again.

Intelligent creatures are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw. If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free.