> Do they send spies in advance (mundane spies) or start
> by heroquesting in the realm of the would-be conquered
> and study his greater powers capability and link to
> the mundane world? Do they seed dissention before the
> real conquest, trying to make the victim ask for their
> intervention and to salvage their "political
> correctedness" or do they merely and brutally crush
> any resistance and annexe the new prey by right of
> superiority? Do they have a continuity of strategy, or
> are their strategies as mutable as their Mask's mood
> and as their flexible tactics? Is more economical (in
> terms of expenditure of resources) for them to use
> before and mainly their mundane resources or their
> supernatural ones (from mild persuasive magic to the
> crimson bat in a continuum of spectrum)?
The short answer to all this is, of course, 'yes.'
The slightly longer one is that, IMO, the *Lunars* put political, cultural and religious conflict first and rely on force of arms once that has either softened up the target or has failed. Unlike the *solars* (who, I believe, would not stoop to polluting themselves in such a way), the first wave would generally be the spies, the missionaries, the traders and the emissaries, while the heroquests are being staged to penetrate and subvert the target culture's myths (eg HonEel and the Tarshites) or simply to undermine their morale, cohesion and combat effectiveness.
After all, the key here is that the Lunars don't want an Empire.
No, really.
What they want is Inclusion, the spread of the Lunar Way. Now, often the best - only - way of doing this is through territorial expansion, the ruthless suppression of those cultures and deities not prepared to accept Inclusion, etc. When the boot is on your throat and the scimitar by your ear, it all looks pretty much like simple imperialism, but to the Lunars this is a means to an end, not the end in itself.
> I wonder, besides, how do they mark/defend and watch
> the "limes" of their growing empire. Do they rely
> "simply" on magic wards (like the huge reaching moon
> temples) or do they use towers of observation,
> fortification walls, patrols and spies to discover
> even the slightest of dangers? Do they array their
> forces on the boundaries or do they keep them on
> reserve to deal with the invading menace when it has
> already displayed its power?
The Garrison Army is there to garrison, but the Heartland Corps, Cavalry
Corps, etc are essentially mobile field armies, mustered and deployed
against threats rather than permanently stationed at all the borders
(though, of course, units have their bases). The borders would generally be
under the protection of the Glowline, and I suspect this would act also as a
kind of strategic wyter, raising the alarm if armies began crossing it.
Besides which, *all* border regions would be infested with Lunar spies and
informants and ranging patrols by units of the Hunter Corps, mobile
Heartland Corps regiments and semi-private vexillae. Of course, that doesn't
mean that there is no room for static defenses, such as fortified villages
(why not combine security with colonisation?), watch towers and even such
bastions as the Cold Line (see
http://www.celtic-webs.com/glorantha/middle/lunar/char-un/coldline.html)
> I ask these questions with the Dragon Pass theatre in
> the XVI-XVII century as main object of observation,
> since probably their attitudes and strategy in other
> areas/periods vary accordingly (don't they?)
Naturally. The Lunars are nothing if not flexible!
All the best
Mark
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