> Scylillans bring excellent horse cavalry.
The Sylillans once liberated Alkoth from Sheng Seleris.
> And, of course the Sairdites, Brolians, Talastari, and Aggari happily
> provide the brave soldiers of the provincial armies who smite the
> barbarian foe.
Brolia is not part of the Lunar Empire, and probably doesn't have enough population to supply mercenaries (which would most likely be auxilliaries) in any significant number.
Martin Laurie wrote
> As a guestimate I've always figured that for every thousand people in a
>tribe,
> the King can muster approx 5 Huscarls who would be seperate from the Clan
> Huscarls. Also, on a tribal level, most Huscarls would be Humakti
>whereas on a
> clan level its the other way round.
King of Sartar [251] suggests a clan chieftain has 10 housecarls, this out of 1200 people. Martin suggests another 6 housecarl-quality warriors are serving the king. The clan has about 250 eligible warriors [251], so it's about 6.4% of the warrior population as elites, which seems reasonable (it's 1.33% of the total population, which might be a tad high).
A clan chieftain is due 5% of the grain harvest [252]. Of this, he has to feed the various non-productive members of his household: lawspeaker, herald, trickster, housecarls. Furthermore, he has to feed the king and his household on occasion -- kings have no steady source of income (other than personal). Of course, the upper-class people the chieftain is supporting probably live at a higher standard of living (you make sure your warriors get enough protein). Let's assume that they live at twice the standard of living as the average (which is less generous than RQ3), so 2.5% of the tribe's population can be elites, or about 30 per clan.
If 2/3 of the elites stay with the clan, then 10 per clan can be employed at the tribal level. Half the clan's elites are housecarls (if the proverbial 10 is true), but less than half the tribe's elites would be professional warriors -- the tribe supports specialists like doctors, brewers, entertainers, etc. So let's say each clan provides 3 (rather than 5, which is 1/2) housecarls to the tribe. For simplicity, let's say 3 per thousand. This gives a king like the Balmyr (7000 people in 1610) about 21 housecarls, significantly more than any of his subordinate chieftains.
David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
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