Could anyone please give me a rough idea of where to begin acquiring some information regarding Athasian armies, mercenaries, equipment, disposition, etc? I truly miss the battles and wars; the "little stuff" will only suffice so long. Technically, I'm not supposed to be gaming due to work and other commitments, so I hope veterans of this board aren't miffed that I'm asking for some pointers. Just a preliminary primer of what websites you like, maybe a link if you have material, or anything else would be excellent.
Thanks
Athas.org
If you're looking for the "big army" stuff, not sure if I can help you there. It was a project I was working on before I was roped into the art-section of DS. The best rules are still Battlesystem or hacked-up versions of Warhammer.
The official website is the best place to start:
Athas.org
If you're looking for the "big army" stuff, not sure if I can help you there. It was a project I was working on before I was roped into the art-section of DS. The best rules are still Battlesystem or hacked-up versions of Warhammer.
While athas.org is excellent and mentions quality links, none of those venues quite covers military operations. Pity you aren't still on the "big army" aspect; oh well, gives people something to wait for...
"Dragon Kings" might take care of some immediate challenges, but I would be interested in learning how other GMs have handled wars or battles.
Projects ahead of it:
1) drawin' monsters.
2) Inner Planes of Athas.
3) Flora and Fauna of Athas.
4) The Green Age.
5) Large-scale combat rules? Mayhaps - like you, I like to fight big battles. I mostly get my fix with WH40K, but bringing it into Athas (again) would definitely be cool. The trick is to make it realistic but not make heroes too vulnerable - no one wants to lose their 20th level fighter because he rolled a single 1 on a d6.
5) Large-scale combat rules? Mayhaps - like you, I like to fight big battles. I mostly get my fix with WH40K, but bringing it into Athas (again) would definitely be cool. The trick is to make it realistic but not make heroes too vulnerable - no one wants to lose their 20th level fighter because he rolled a single 1 on a d6.
I like to use Battlesystem as well, though sometimes I use War Law from Rolemaster for certain campaigns. It will be interesting to discover your take on large scale combats in Athas when you get a chance. I imagine it will not be soon, with your other projects...
Try searching Grummore's HUGE Dark Sun links page on this site The Silt Skimmer Page
Now... yeah, that's someone who KNOW about that he is talking about.
I don't have any specific info on Dark Sun armies, aside from what's in the sourcebooks, but if you're looking to find a good mass battle rules set, i'd look over at malhavoc's Cry Havoc book. You can download the pdf from their site for about 5 bucks (its what i did) and the rules are already d20. It looks like a great way to handle large battles, and still takes into consideration d20 stats and abilities. It also allows easy switching from mass combat to individual combat and back again.
Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I have that on a CD somewhere. Time to look through the archive. I have quite a few other systems as well, I guess. That one will take care of an upcoming battle, though. I'll have to make time for army development and organization. Some of those siltskimmer.net recommended sites helped some. Sometimes you just have to do the numbers yourself, heh.
I'm looking for more information as well. "Dragon Kings" is an excellent start. Any GMs have ideas regarding city-state or merchant armies they care to share?
Firstly, maintaining a standing army is expensive. That is a bunch of people who do nothing else other than train for battle and war. Beyond actually paying the man his wages, you have to feed him (and possibly his mount), and provide him with decent gear.
Many real world countries historically relied on conscription to bulk out their standing armies when it came time to do fun things like invade an evil neighbour. This happened frequently enough that many peasant families would have two or three men to send to war each year to bring back some loot. These conscripts would be in theory paid a very good wage, but a good portion of their actual income came from looting and pillaging the countryside the army travelled across.
On Athas, given the largely despotic rule that each of the city-states operated under, a decent standing army would be reasonable to assume for all the city-states. A number in the order of 5% of a city's population is not unreasonable a start with for their core standing army.
However, rather than relying solely on semi-professional conscripts to bulk out your army, I think it would be far more likely that Athasian standing armies would also bulk themselves out with slave levies, animated dead and monsters.
Slaves, rather than wasting them fighting trained warriors would perform all your logistical support duties like weapons and armour repair, messenger services, first aid, baggage handling etc. If things got really desperate you could slaughter all your slaves to create a bunch of undead to fight for you.
The undead don't require food or water, the desert conditions means that preservation of corpses is relatively easy over long periods of time, and templars and their sorcerer-kings don't need to worry about the morality of mass animation of the dead. You do need to worry about controlling them however... (maybe animating your templars to provide undead officers?). To maintain any sort of morale amongst your living soldiers however it would be reasonable to say that soldiers that died in battle would be given a burial, slaves would be animated.
Finally, Athas is home to some fairly scary sorts of beasts and the power (arcane or psionic) to pacify them. Urik makes use of Driks as tanks, but others are possible too. The idea would be to find real world military functions that could be performed by individual monsters.
The Merchant Houses are unlikely to maintain large armies. Professional guards is one thing, a House has caravans that must get to and from their destinations safely. But having large forces sitting around would likely make a sorcerer-monarch edgy. Further, mercenaries cost money so the merchant houses are likely to maintain the minimum armed force they believe they need to protect their interests. These forces might in total be quite large (maybe as many men as a city's standing army), but it would be rare to see any significant number of these in any one location.
Finally, there are likely to be a few large professional armies elsewhere too. Most other of these would be tribes that act predominantly as raiders. These groups would vary considerably in skill and equipment, even within a certain force. Once every few generations, I would think it reasonable for a charismatic leader to unite a whole group of these tribes and pose a serious military threat to a city-state, but this would be quite a rare event (say the basis of an adventure).
Most importantly however you need to remember the power of the supernatural. A fireball does wonders for killing large groups of tightly packed men, cloudkill and firestorm top the list for large scale mayhem on a battlefield, IMO. SO, having any sort of large army in one place is risky given the power of magic and psionics to kill.
I think it not unreasonable to assume that most armies would largely act as skirmishes, ie men well spaced apart rather than the tightly packed formations of the medieval period. Given that weather also encourages light armour, fast moving skirmishes seems more reasonable again.
Finally, logistically speaking marching a large army anywhere is likely to be prohibitively expensive. I mean providing decent food and safe water in the middle of Athas' wilderness can't be easy, and there is not likely going to be much looting happening in a desert. This would also likely serve to keep armies small (in terms of the living).
So, in summary I would say most city-states have between 500 and 2,000 professional soliders with nobles and templars as officers. These would be bulked up with 1,000 to 6,000 semi-professional peasant-soldiers, with as many again slaves. A force of 5,000 to 10,000 undead troops and 50 to 100 assorted monsters would complete your army. Appropriate levels of supernatural forces (defilers and psions) would be included as well.
Merchant Houses would have similar numbers, but lack the ability to control so many undead (no templars). This would likely encourage a reliance of better skilled individuals rather than large numbers of canon fodder.
Raiding tribes would vary in size from half a dozen to 500 raiders. Large raiding armies would get to around 10,000 or so, but likely not being able to maitain their cohesion for more than a couple years.
hope something here helps
regards
the cute and fluffy DM
Once used though, it all rolls out quite nicely. Now I just need a way to work seiges into the game, and the sacking of Raam will commence.
Yeah, I won't use kid gloves this time around, I believe. Some decent siege warfare and decisive battles might be the way to go this time around.
It has a very good conversion system, essentially everything remains the same (ex. If your troops, as individuals, have an AC of 15, then as a group they have an AC of 15) The only thing that really changes is the Attacks and Hit Points, as well as some feats, spells and special abilities. Overall I recommend it, but I still kinda miss Battlesystem. It is scaleable, so you can have units of 1 individual or units of 1000 individuals. So you can satisfy the unique nature of Athas and have 'armies' of 500 people.
I adapted the emipire managment rules for Dark Sun as well and I think it works pretty good for small time merchants that player characters may wish to play.