Re: Praxian tribal campaign

From: jorganos <joe_at_...>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:19:21 -0000


Chris Lemens wrote:

> A clan on the move is something to see. This is not a military unit; it is a large group of families, with people of all ages, and all their worldly possessions.

Depending on the culture, a military unit on the move (away from its usual garrison, at least) may look little different from a clan moving around. Less herd beasts (though still some), of course - unless you count the armed folk marching in some sort of order. If cavalry, the same amount of reserve steeds. The military will have a train - if an official unit, actually two trains, one within the column, and another of camp followers behind it. A mercenary unit may place the family with the train.

Both a clan on the move and a military unit on the move will have a vanguard, flankers (which double as foragers), and a rearguard.

> Their possessions are packed either onto beasts or onto travois pulled by beasts.

What kind of tents do the Praxians use? I suppose that the tent poles double as travois, and that the clan will use the much smaller hunters' shelters while moving rather than erecting a full camp every evening.

> I don't see wheeled wagons making it across the broken terrain of the wastes.

One could argue that Siberia is about as rugged, but the mongols there do manage with wagons.

I think the most telling argument against wagons is the lack of suitable wood in Prax, which leads to any wagon-building skill to wither away from lying fallow too long.

Few of the Praxian steeds would lend themselves as draft beasts for wagons, too - bisons and sables might, but these beasts lend themselves just as well for pack saddles. A rhino-drawn battlewagon could be fearsome, but a rhino without a wagon isn't any less fearsome.

> How is a morocanth descended from Waha? Ewww is one possible answer.

I don't think so. The usual way of being descended from a Great Spirit or deity is by having a mortal allowing the deity in, in a kind of possession or heroforming. For the morocanth, the mortal obviously was four-legged.

The Founder and the Protectress must have been able to take either shape (herdman or beast) before the Covenant. That's the only reason I can see why there were herdman groups accompanying specific herds in Golden Age Prax and Genert's Garden.

I wonder if the founder is called into the prize breeding bulls of the clans for specific fertility rites, too.            

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