Before I said that power could take the form of magic, land, gold, prestige or weapons. Princes want to regulate all forms of power to the best of their ability. Lets talk about weapons and the knowledge of how to use them.
The right to bear arms....or not.
Youtube channels that focus on HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) or medieval history have argued about how common weapons and combat training was in the medieval world. The medieval period covers a long stretch of history and a wide variety of nations and cultures. There were times and places where the lower classes were not permitted to carry weapons. There were times and places where most adult males were
required to own and carry swords. These examples from real world history are pretty limited. It seems like in most places, kings didn’t pass a lot of laws or decrees about how well armed the lower classes are.
Both real world and fantasy world princes have to balance two conflicting imperatives. A well-armed populace might eventually rise up and overthrow their prince. Thus if a well-armed populace is an internal threat. On the other hand, a poorly armed populace means a prince’s realm is going to be vulnerable to hostile foreign powers.
Okay so my fantasy world has the same problems with bandits and wars that the real world medieval period had, but it also has literal monsters in the wilderness, the sewers, or materializing spirits coming down from the sky. This might mean that a prince might not only allow, but encourage the peasants to gather weapons and learn how to use them. Even an ironfisted tyrant doesn’t what goblins raiders eating half of his workforce.
At some point I need to read Shadiversity’s fantasy novel. I’m just concerned that his hyper focus on realism is likely to hurt the story. Maybe not. But Shad
really likes swords, so he created a world where most people carry a sword. So his world has no night, the sun is always shining. If a person is trapped in darkness for 24 hours, they turn into a malevolent monster. Besides killing non-monstrous people, these monsters will also kidnap people and trap them in darkness to raise their numbers. Because of the prevalence of these monsters and the fact that these attacks are fairly random, most adult males and more than a few women carry a sword with them for self-defense. Because most adults carry a sword, his people developed a dueling culture.
I know that Shad worked backwards from “I want lots of swords!” to “This is why there are lots of swords.” Shad puts for the idea that “If I
know that I’m going to have to fight for my life, I’m going to wear the best armor I can afford, get a big shield, and carry battlefield weapons. If I think there is a chance I’m going to have to fight for my life, I’m going to carry a sword and maybe a buckler shield.” Staffs were often kept for self-defense too. So I guess there is a difference between keeping a piece for self-defense and keeping a set of full military gear in the attic.
On the other hand, assuming the local prince is a powerful magic user, or has powerful magic users loyal to him, he might not
need a well-armed populace to defend his realm.
Another possibility is that with the prevalence of magic users, local princes don’t even care whether their peasants are swordsmen or not. Princes are too busy trying to control the local magic users to even spare a second thought to how well-armed his subjects are with mundane weapons and armor.
On the whole, I think the natures of my world of Scarterras tilt the deck towards “princes generally want their populace to be well-armed.” I’m not married to this supposition. If someone thinks this would not be the case, I would be eager to read how you came to this conclusion.
I think Scarterran noblemen who are effete weakling couriers who cannot fight would be fairly uncommon. I think the peasant and merchant classes on Scarterras would have more combat training and weapons than their real world historical counterparts, but I'm not sure how much better armed.
Most peasants could get a hold of spear, shield, and some cloth armor without a lot of fuss. If the local nobility
wanted citizen soldiers, it would not be infeasible to supply the peasantry with swords, crossbows, and medium armor. Merchant class peasants would probably be able to get their own swords, crossbows and medium armor. If the local nobles provided them military support, they could easily afford long bows, halberds, and the like.
Should the Scarterran people generally be well-armed or should the nobles jealously guard their power.
Another question is if most commoners are carrying a sword, quarterstaff, or hand axe for self-defense and/or keep a set of light armor, shield and spear in the barn, would this mean that there wouldn’t be slavery or serfdom?
Peasant levies were sent into combat in the real world historical Europe, but these troops were basically untrained generally little more than arrow catchers. It takes a lot of work to become a world renowned sword fighter, but a month of solid training is probably enough to make almost any able bodied adult reasonably competent (At the ●● level at least). I still think the standard battlefield armament for most commoners, even trained ones, would be spears, shields, light armor, and maybe crossbows. City folk probably have rapiers, bucklers, and maybe crossbows.
If most of the peasants have basic armaments it’s harder to push them around. Not impossible. A knight in full plate can run roughshod over dozens of foot soldiers. A single knight could theoretically take on a hundred foot soldiers if he kills enough of them quickly enough to cause the line to falter and break. Magic of course, can bully soldiers too.
Even if a prince has the power to bully armed populace, it’s probably easiest to make a rousing speech of “We’re all in this together. Together we must defend ourselves from the outside aggressors.” That level of propaganda would not be very difficult in a world full of fantasy monsters.
There were historical examples of slave soldiers. I personally think that’s guano crazy. The Unsullied in Game of Thrones were an exaggerated version of real world eunich soldiers. Basically they were brainwashed from a young age to lack the capacity to rebel. But in Game of Thrones, they did rebel anyway. I don’t know any real world examples of slave soldiers mutinying, but Spartacus was a gladiator slave who led a massive revolt.
I certainly cannot picture the dark elves of Kahdisteria arming any of their slaves as soldiers. That doesn’t close off the possibility of other nations having slave soldiers, but that’s still weird to me. I don’t know if any nations would have gladiator traditions, perhaps as means of capital punishment or elsewise. In the real world, it was not that uncommon for gladiators to survive a match. It’s expensive to keep and train gladiators, game masters had an incentive to let their gladiators to fight again. Not every gladiator was a slave. Some freemen fought for gold or glory.
In a world where magical healing is a real thing, gladiatorial conflict can be visceral and bloody without being automatically lethal. There is still is a good chance that someone can die in the arena (and the crowd probably secretly is hoping for a death) but gladiatorial combat with magical healers waiting in the wings could make blood sports less suicidal, so free gladiators fighting of their own accord is more feasible.
Where and how should I include gladiatorial combat in Scarterras, if ever?
Dwarves and elves live a lot longer than humans. Dwarf and elf pregnancies are about 11 months and 24 months respectively and it takes a lot longer for a dwarf or elf baby to grow up to adulthood than a human. Dwarf and elf nations cannot bounce back from massive casualties the way that humans can. I am betting that it’s rare for an adult male (or any adult really) of these species to not have some basic combat training.
Most existing fantasy writing has elves teach almost all their children how to fight with swords and bows. Most existing fantasy writing has dwarves develop a machismo/martial culture not unlike the Klingons. In fact, some call Klingons “Space Dwarves.”
Gnomes live long and breed slowly too, but I don’t figure gnomes would have much of a martial culture. Gnomes have a +1 difficulty penalty on all Strength rolls which has a
huge impact on combat. For simplicity I chose not to give gnomes a combat penalty on attack rolls due to their limited reach compared to most other races. They also get a penalty due to their small size in grappling and bull rush maneuvers in unarmed combat.
I need to some up with a local Scarterran proverb. A gnome’s sword is his tongue. Gnomes get a -1 difficulty bonus on nearly all Charisma and Manipulation. In most cases, they talk themselves out of trouble or they die. I don’t agree with everything Shad says, but I agree with the gist of
his Youtube video on how halflings and other little people would fight. They would fight dirty. Gnomes at war rely on stealth and subterfuge. Poisoning enemies or killing them in their sleep, then using their silver tongues to explain why it couldn’t have possibly been them who did the deed.
Kenku are in a similar boat. They are good at talking and not very good at fighting. Only slightly shorter than humans, their big problem is their hollow bones. They are better at fighting than gnomes though because they get a -1 difficulty break on all Dexterity rolls but they prefer to wheel and deal with their way out of problems rather than fighting if they have the choice.
Orcs and even less aggressive barbarians would probably generally know how to fight. It’d be rare to find any intelligent creature living outside of civilization that doesn’t develop their combat skills.
The main combat skills are listed below. They go on a one to five scale like nearly everything else. A character with a specialty gets a bonus die on all rolls within that specialty. It’s pretty easy for any character to get a specialty. It gets increasingly expensive to buy a second or third specialty. They aren’t cumulative either, a character that has a specialty in “axes” and a specialty in “parries” would only get one bonus die when parrying with an axe, not a two-die bonus.
So I figure anyone growing up in a rough upbringing would be almost certain to pick up ● level combat skills.
If the local lord encourages the lower classes to be part-time citizen soldiers, ●● level combat skills would be very common. I figure most barbarian adults would have this level of combat training just to be able to handle all the monsters in the wilderness.
●●● level combat abilities represent people who have had lots of training but very little real fighting experience, or very little training and a hellish lifetime, or moderate training and moderate real combat experience. The average orc or other barbarian that makes a living raiding weaker people probably has this level of combat training.
People with ●●●● fighting skills are probably going to be local celebrities regardless if they are highborn or lowborn. ●●●●● fighters are living legends, almost treated like potent magic users.
Brawl
Your ability to fight unarmed.
● You don’t immediately fold in the face of a fight.
●● You’ve had your share of tussles with neighbors and local brawlers.
●●● You fight with confidence and competence, and you can count on winning or at least coming through a fight and remaining standing.
●●●● You can take on most opponents and expect to win.
●●●●● You can do as much with your fists as many soldiers and knights do with their weapons.
Specialties: Boxing, drunken fighting, grappling, showing off, throws, wrestling, magical touch attacks
Dodge
Ability to move out of the way of harmful things.
● You reflexively avoid most minor sources of injury and show a measure of grace in your movements.
●● You’re hard to hurt unless someone or something catches you by surprise.
●●● It takes serious effort for an opponent to hit you; you get out of the way of most thrown objects as well as immediate dangers
●●●● Only skilled warriors can expect to hurt you very much.
●●●●● Wherever a threat is, you’re almost invariably somewhere else.
Specialties: By situation (back step, dive, finding cover, leap) or by attack (pole weapon, brawling attack, thrown weapons, magical bursts).
Archery
Your skill with bows and crossbows.
● You can shoot adequately as long as the circumstances are not distracting. You can maintain a bow but not repair it.
●● You can hunt and fight competently with a bow. You can maintain and repair a bow but not build a new one.
●●● You can handle a bow with grace and style, and you can make weapons that are respected for their craftsmanship.
●●●● Warlords and others who require superior archers seek you out.
●●●●● Neither distance, darkness, nor anything else seems capable of stopping your arrows from going precisely where you want them to go.
Specialties: Quick shots, moving targets, hunting, horseback, ambushes, fields, forests
Melee
Your skill in close combat with weapons.
● You can handle simple weapons and any weapon popular in the area you grew up. You can maintain but not repair a weapon.
●● You can fight moderately well with common weapons. You can do basic repairs on an axe or other simple melee weapon.
●●● You know how to use a wide variety of weapons well, and you can make a living as a professional soldier if you choose. You can basic repairs on a sword or more complex melee weapon. You can manufacture simple melee weapons.
●●●● You routinely distinguish yourself in battles, tournaments, and other martial displays.
●●●●● Everyone who uses your favored weapons knows your deeds –which may breed challenges as well as respect.
Specialties: By weapon (swords, axes, clubs), by situation (fighting in formation, duels, multiple opponents) or by maneuver (rapid draws, disarms, weapon drills)
In combat Dexterity is king. Most combat rolls involve Dexterity + Dodge, Dexterity + Melee, Dexterity + Brawl, etc. A character with Dexterity ●●●●● Melee ● fights exactly as well as someone with Dexterity ●●● and Melee ●●●. In a way, Dexterity is probably the single most important of the nine attributes because of its role in combat. That’s arguably a weakness of the system but that’s neither here nor there. Taking Dexterity as a dump stat is going to hinder a character far more than taking any other attribute as a dump stat.
Dodge can be used to avoid any attack. Characters can also use their Brawl or Melee to block or parry close combat attacks. Characters can block or even catch arrows IF they buy expensive Merits to represent advanced training. Few characers do, but the option is there if a player wants to mimic the abilities of a D&D monk.
Fun fact. Characters fighting on horseback get a bunch of bonuses but a character cannot roll more dice in Melee or Archery than they have in Ride. Thus a character with Melee ●●●● and Ride ● will always want to fight on foot.
Mundane skills that aren’t used for combat are pretty similar and I have fluffy descriptions for the one to five levels of all of them. Most typical peasants and noble courtiers NPCs have ●●● in whatever skill they base their livelihood on. People with ●●●● skills can generally make good money and attract the attention of nobles and anyone else who want the
best musicians the
best estate managers, etc. People with ●●●●● skills are probably world famous and can basically dictate terms to their employers.
Unless a character's speciality is Subterfuge or Stealth of course. One of my favorite Game of Thrones lines of Sir Davos Seaworth applies.
"I was never a pirate, I was a smuggler?"
"What's the difference?"
"If you are a famous smuggler, you aren't doin' it right,"
It’s not uncommon for PC level characters to have multiple ●●● abilities. Neshik and Aranil both have three threes. Aranil has a gazillion twos. His player likes playing jack-of-all trades types. It’s not uncommon for PC level characters that opt not to play magic users to have lots of really impressive. Svetlana’s whose player sadly opted out of the game early, has six threes.
)
...not one of mine. 