Re: The Hidden Gale storms Crescent Manor...

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:12:18 -0000

Alexandre Lanciani wrote:
> IMG ... it's one of the forts built to house the tribal
> overseers appointed after Kallyr's failed rebellion.

Let's work with that then.

How many men?

> Surely 20 or 30 are not enough to patrol the whole tribal lands,
>much less to enforce the lunar rule only by their presence.

Modern peacekeeping patrols are often about 4-8 men. Allowing for changes in weaponry/tactics about 10 men on patrol sounds like a fair guess. Remember if you discover a serious uprising you fall back the fort and raise the alarm. In addition these guys are trained soldiers. Individually they are more than a match for a louzy bunch of hill farmers.

A patrol has a number of purposes:

• Keep the area free of bandits (i.e. small goroups of rebels ambushing good people going about their business). -Show the flag. Remind people that you are in charge now by your presence. -Detect but not confront large gatherings of armed men, weapon caches, training. Suppress the ability of the rebels to gather and organise. -Deny the enemy free movement, force those rebel scum off the roads. -make sure nobody is sneaking up on the fort.

30 men gives you enough for one patrol out, 10 men on the walls, and 10 resting. If things are a bit rough locally they may well have be reinforced with another 10 or 20 men for extra patrols.

Remember you don't want your patrols having to stray more than an hour or two from home, that is unsafe. If you have a,lot of ground to cover, build another fort along the nearest line of communication.

Of course in Lismelder territory *everyone* knows it was the ducks that caused the trouble; the fort may spend some time paying all those bounty hunters the bounty on duck heads. That might give you an small admin staff at the fort.

>But 100 men are too many,

Sounds like you have a fair estimate of what you want.  

> The command group should include IMO at least a yanafali type -
> after all the garrison will probably include mercenaries form
> different countries,

Their unit comanders probably liaise with the lunar unit commander.

> as well as local collaborators,

Uh, but our clan have always feuded with xxx. We're not collaborators ;-)

> then he is the yanafali, but I like the idea of having two factions
>(solar > vs. lunar).

Or just have conflict between the mercenaries and the lunar regulars.

> And still nobody has answered my question on magical
> defenses...

I know as much as you do. IMHO the magic you refer to is associated with communities or magical places. I'm not sure the fort is either of these. The lunar regiment and the mercenary bands may well have their own daimons.

Ian