Pikestaffs

From: Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG <Bernuetz.Oliver_at_cbsc.ic.gc.ca>
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 16:10:14 -0500


Sergio said:
>IMO the small spots of trees or florest that exist in Prax and the ZF
>valley are unsuited to this purpose. They will not grow the kind of trees
>you need to produce pique's shafts: they require long, straigh and very
>hard wood. It can be used to other purposes (like the ones you mentioned).
>(BTW my RW examples for praxian trees are not central and northern Europe
>but the mediterranean basin.)

You can make pikes from ash which according to one source I consulted:

Grows..."throughout British Isles and Europe into Asia Minor and Caucuses."

However ash does not grow well in wet soil so it's not a bog candidate. It could
grow in the foothills though.

Sergio again:

>Piques are critical to Sun County people. They cannot rely on distant
>sources for its main and more fragile component: the pole.

I disagree that they couldn't rely on trade there are numerous examples of countries having to rely on distant sources for strategic materials. A good
ancient example is tin for bronze which the Greeks had to get from the British
Isles in some case. Going to the Rockwood Foothills isn't anywhere as adventurous or dangerous as travelling all the way from the Eastern Mediterranean to the British Isles.

>- - Exploring faraway sources, be it in DP or near the ZF mouth, is to
risky:
>you have to send an expedition with all the risks involved of being spoted
>and attacked by your enemies, and you always find someone living in those
>forested regions that will see you as an invader destroing their precious
>trees. Yelmalion could do it if they had a permanent settlement there but
>they never did.

Yet, it'd be worth it to obtain such a strategic material like pike shafts and
they don't have to explore these sources as they'd be well aware of their location after a few hundred years of exploiting them. In the case of the Rockwoods they aren't really taking trees from immediate enemies so the locals would probably be willing to trade for the trees. (And they wouldn't be particularily precious there).

>- - Trade was not a reliable source for most of the time because of wars in

>Prax or in DP. Notice that for most of the third era the trade routs were
>not operating. And for merchants, exporting wood poles to Prax is
>uneconomical (they're bigh and eavy) unless they command a very high price
>for it. The price of the poles would be excessive to SC people.

Unless you're a Lokarnos merchant and it's a religious obligation. I think the importance of the Lokarnos cult to Sun County, especially in the past has been overlooked. The Yemalians don't have to passively wait for merchants to come to them they could travel to the source of the poles themselves. They could "easily" mount an expedition with Lokarnos wagons, a templar guard and allied tribesmen escorts. Since they'd always be defending when attacked they'd have a good chance of getting through especially since they'd be travelling to the sources on a very irregular
schedule (making it hard to predict when they'd be going). It'd take more than a raiding party of nomads to beat a large unit of templars, especially if they had a screen of missile armed nomad allies.

Oliver D. Bernuetz
bernuetz.oliver_at_cbsc.ic.gc.ca
www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/realm/5545


End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #267


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