Vysii

while there is definitely such thing as an acceptable break from reality, i personally just don't think the new changes to the effectiveness of bows, crossbows, and plate armor count. the issue with saying 'arguments of realism don't hold authoritative weight' is that crp is one the few aspects of the lotc experience where a large part is settled by real-life logic and mechanics. this is because it's mostly freeform/honor; there's no hp bars, stats, or rolling to impartially determine who is winning. because of this, all two conflicting players can do without a mod or st acting as dungeon master is to make any kind of argument that they think would persuade the other person towards conceding a loss. appeals to realism (e.g 'my orc-strength persona can outmuscle your normal human-strength persona, so I would realistically have the mechanical advantage in this weapon bind') are among the most common, because most people won't concede taking a serious, potentially fight-ending blow 'for funsies', especially when they've got something at stake south of petra, i can see a lightly armored dude bringing up heat exhaustion and heatstroke during a fight against a heavily armored bandit who wants to pk him and steal his stuff; prolonging the engagement to that point might be their only shot at winning. but very few people would bring up those same arguments to a heavily armored guy they're just casually chilling with in a town square while people are free to pick and choose, some choices just seem less sensible than others imo. the issue with plate armor being so common on lotc comes down to strange enforcement choices. for example: unlike on many other rp servers, there's not even a simple progression system in place limiting who can make plate armor like how the alchemy system moderates who can make what potions. and unlike with weapons, there's no requirement for player-approved or st-signed mechanical roleplay items to represent plate armor in order to use them irp. rather than generating a net positive amount of fun, weird decisions like these just led to the frustrating meta of the last patch. meanwhile, real life just naturally balanced this with things like the skills, technologies, and resources required to make plate armor; all the weapons people developed to counter that invention; and then the counters people developed to counter those counters. imo deliberately going out of the way to avoid taking inspiration from real life when it would be reasonable because 'it's fantasy', just seems to make things more weird than better. with the current system, we've got an issue with ranged being mechanically more powerful than melee by a big deal. with ranged, rolls are optional and armor penetration is p much guaranteed after the emotes are charged up. with melee, two-handed weapons have become a lot less viable, shields are compulsory to avoid getting one-tapped whereas before you could wear a shield over your whole body (it was called armor), and deciding hits is still up to who can make the most compelling argument

tbf with the current rules, plate or no plate, people will get shredded by longbows and crank crossbows since they consistently pierce all types of armor. the update has effectively turned them into heavy firearms minus the noise and smoke and guns wouldn't be that big of an issue mechanically imo. plate armor as we know it developed as a response to guns. a thick steel breastplate that's been hardened and tempered (i.e the current minimum armor standard on lotc) can stop a bullet. armorers from europe all the way to japan regularly tested the protectiveness of their stuff by shooting them with pistols and arquebuses. some soldiers then had to start carrying bigger and heavier muskets to compensate for that. and armorers still made wearable stuff that could block them, it just got heavier and less economical to equip entire armies with. and people from the american civil war, to ww2, to the modern day still survived gunshot wounds and kept on fighting even though guns and bullets were a lot more lethal than they used to be in the medieval and early modern periods in lotc, there's a lot of lore materials that can do a better job than steel. medical treatments are generally a lot more effective than irl. and anyone legit arguing for instakills outside the context of a clean shot through the head or heart would probably be a powergamer who's done the exact same thing before with longbows and arbalests and can be shut up with reasonable redlines

ye fam it's clear that the ST made the change for game balance reasons. but sacrificing realism by this much in a combat system that otherwise revolves a lot around realism is high-key inconsistent. imo dude if we wanted a ranged counter against plate armor, there's better, less immersion-breaking ways to go about it if we're willing to go this far just to avoid having muskets (heavier ones are the actual ranged counter against plate armor), ya'll can play the "this is a fantasy setting" card to do stuff like let players build modern-style crossbows and compound bows with lore materials, buff will 'o bottle and blasting potion damage against armored players, or buff some offensive spells so they can actually deal with plate. bruh imagine having a fantastical setting and lore with all these possibilities, and still holding back this much with them. you can have your cake and eat it too or tell scrubs to git gud and put in the effort like people who research hema

the kinetic energy imparted by a bow and melee weapons depend on the exact same chemical potential energy produced by human muscle tissue. it's just not enough

And a lot of CRP involves realistic thinking and is decided by real-life physics and mechanics. What makes an arrow loosed from a normal muscle-powered bow so much more powerful than straight thrusts from weapons like poleaxes or estocs, which heavy armours are ruled as being 'near-impervious' against?

>Longbows are capable of consistently piercing through Medium and even Heavy Armor at full draw. Yeah...

Right beneath our feet An introduction to tunnel warfare By Ahren Jaeger This is the second part of my ‘Right beneath our feet’ pamphlet series. In a recent skirmish against the Harrower’s forces, people discovered evidence of the Ailmerians digging a continent-wide underground tunnel network. The odds are they are not using it for peaceful purposes like setting world records in civil engineering. Allowing them to keep expanding it unchallenged puts the realms of Aevos at grave risk. So I am writing this introductory guide to tunnel warfare to help the people of Aevos more effectively deal with it. Table of Contents Part One: Common uses of tunnels Part Two: Detecting tunnels Part Three: Scouting for tunnels Part Four: Destroying tunnels Part Five: Tunnel fighting Part Two: Detecting tunnels In sieges, undermining poses a huge threat to even the strongest and most massive of fortifications. It is for very good reason that defenders scramble to intercept enemy tunnels as soon as they figure out that the enemy is trying to collapse the ground from under them. The only way to stop an undermining attempt is to neutralise the tunnel along with its assigned workforce before they reach their intended target. So the moment shovels hit the dirt, the defenders face a race against time to prevent the literal and figurative collapse of their defences. It is thus of utmost importance to detect potential tunnelling activities as early as possible. The more time defenders give themselves to react, the sooner they can commence countermining operations, the less likely an undermining attempt is to succeed. Advance warning is key to survival. This section will explain the most common methods used by defenders of besieged cities and fortresses to detect undermining attempts against their fortifications. These, fortunately, happen to be rather simple and straightforward; they mainly consist of watching for sounds or ground vibrations potentially originating from tunnel construction. Tunnel construction tends to make a lot of sound vibrations, so it is not easy to hide if it is actively being listened for — especially not on the sheer scale the Harrower is attempting. Sounds and vibrations To understand how sound-based tunnel detection methods work, it would be useful to have some basic idea of how sound works. Ancient philosophers, architects, and engineers figured out that: sound consists of vibrations passed between contacting matter; a sound moves outwards from its point of origin as a wave (like waves in a water ripple, but in three-dimensional space); a sound loses kinetic energy as it travels through a physical medium; the denser the medium, the faster and farther sound travels; sound loses significantly more kinetic energy as vibrations pass between different types of mediums due to a combination of absorption and reflection. These aspects of sound can be observed, for example, by conversing with another person under different conditions. When someone tries to talk to you, the sound of their voice originates from their lungs and vocal chords before exiting through their mouth. Travelling through the air as its medium, their voice’s sound vibrations travel in all directions as waves. You finally hear their voice when the sound waves enter your ears. If that same person tries talking to you from across a wide field using a normal indoor-voice volume, you will probably not be able to hear them (unless, maybe, you are an elf). But if they try shouting, their voice may just become audible. This is because sound that is moving has kinetic energy (the energy something has from motion), and it gradually loses kinetic energy as it travels through a medium. But the louder a sound is, the more kinetic energy it has. And the more kinetic energy a sound has, the farther it can travel. So the farther away the other person is standing from you, the more kinetic energy their voice’s sound vibrations will lose by the time they reach your ears; this makes them sound quieter to you until, at some point, you can no longer hear them. But the louder they make their voice, the farther away it can be heard. Another important thing to note about sound is that it does not only travel through air. Sound waves travel through all matter, which could be either solid, liquid, or gaseous in form. The denser the matter, the faster it is for the vibrations to travel through; solids are the densest type of matter, followed in declining order by liquids and gases. But as vibrations travel through changing types of mediums (such from a gas to a solid and vice versa), they lose a significant amount of kinetic energy in the process. If you change the setting of the conversation to opposite sides of an open doorway, their voice will sound loud and clear. But if you shut the door on them, you can still hear them talking even with the door in the way, though their voice will sound quieter and muffled. This is because the sound vibrations of their voice passed through different mediums twice by the time they reached your ears: 1) from air (gas) to wood (solid) and then 2) from wood (solid) to air (gas). Each of these changes in media took away a significant amount of kinetic energy from the other person’s voice. The door, being of a different medium, would have also reflected some incoming sound waves back towards the speaker, refracted the sound waves that made it into the door, and absorbed a significant amount of energy from the sound waves before they once again changed medium to air. And so the other person’s voice is not as clearly audible by the time it reaches your ears. But if you press your ear to the door, or hold a drinking glass to it and press your ear against that, their voice will suddenly become clearer again. For a few more examples of how these aspects of sound can be observed: If you go out for a swim in the ocean and dive underwater, you can hear a whale’s call from hundreds of miles away. But the moment you swim up to the surface and your ears go above-water, you might not be able to hear the whale at all unless it is relatively close. Sound travels farther and faster in water than in air. The boundary between the ocean’s water and the air also reflects the majority of sound waves coming from the whale back underwater, preventing much of the sound from being transmitted above-water. If you are tracking a herd of buffalo across a great plain, you can hear the herd trampling across the ground sooner and from much farther away if you just press your ear to the ground than if you were to try listening from a standing position. Sound travels fastest in solids, so sound vibrations from the buffalo herd will reach the ear touching the ground before reaching the ear facing the air. But the soil, depending on how soft and loose it is, would absorb much of the sound waves’ energy; the sound would probably still be very faint and muffled, but at least you can hear the herd. If you are fighting a magical Voidal entity that drags you into a dimension completely devoid of air, in which there is only an empty vacuum with no matter to transmit sound vibrations, as you start choking to death, no one can hear you scream. Of course, this is a very, very simplified explanation of how sound works. And by no means does it cover everything about it. Sound is a complex thing that scholars of acoustics (the branch of physics that involves the scientific study of sound) devote their entire lives to researching. But even without knowing the specific properties that comprise a sound or any acoustics-related mathematical equations, this basic-level knowledge should be more than enough to help you understand how to detect a tunnel under construction. How to detect tunnelling The aspects of sound outlined in the section above enable defenders of a besieged castle to detect undermining attempts, all without necessarily seeing the digging take place. When the attacker’s miners shovel dirt, strike solid rock with pickaxes, or blast stone apart with gunpowder, their actions produce sound vibrations. Sound vibrations from their tunnelling will travel through soil and bedrock, quickly reaching the walls of cellars and other underground rooms within the castle. The vibrations will also reach the castle’s ground-level floors. The defenders can then detect these vibrations through very simple means, triangulate the location of the enemy miners with good accuracy, and dig countermines to intercept them in time to protect their own fortifications. Listening galleries The simplest way to detect tunnelling is to actively listen for it. The best places to intercept tunnelling-related sound waves would be underground rooms such as cellars, dungeons, and cisterns. Once underground, simply press your ear against a wall and it will pick up any sound vibrations travelling through the ground. Better yet, you can hold a glass cup to the wall and listen through the bottom of the glass; the acoustics of the glass would collect, focus, and amplify incoming sound waves coming from the wall, making the sounds more audible. The clearer and more audible the sound, the more likely it is that your ear is facing the exact direction of the incoming tunnel. This is the exact same method people commonly use to eavesdrop on conversations happening in another room. It also works fairly well at detecting tunnelling; during sieges, garrisons would maintain rotating shifts of soldiers or civilian volunteers to man listening posts to give advance warning of enemy undermining attempts. However, this method is not exactly perfect. There is always a fair bit of guesswork involved. And, unless you are listening from a particularly quiet area isolated from unwanted noise, sound vibrations from tunnelling will probably be mixed with vibrations from other sources. In the siege of a city, for example, your ears might pick up ground vibrations caused by other members of the garrison marching on patrol or civilians, horses, and their vehicles moving through a bustling street directly overhead. They would probably sound distinctly different from a shovel hitting dirt or the clink of a metal pickaxe striking hard rock, but all this ambient noise wouldn’t make discerning the sound of tunnelling any easier. This is one of the main reasons why, in more modern fortifications, engineers construct networks of pre-built countermines and underground listening galleries (dedicated rooms for listening in on enemy tunnelling activities) branching out beyond their walls. Far away from urban bustle, these tunnels are less affected by ambient noise and makes it easier to specifically hear the sounds of tunnelling. And so, they generally make for superior listening posts. In times of peace, when there is no imminent threat of being undermined by a besieging enemy, these tunnels also often double as extra storage spaces. Of course, building pre-existing tunnels leading into a fortification carries the risk of besieging enemies either actively looking for these tunnels or mining into them by complete accident. This could, theoretically, provide them a convenient means of entry into the place you’re supposed to be defending. So in anticipation of this scenario, pre-existing countermines are normally deliberately constructed to be confusing and hazardous on purpose to intruders. They are typically built with labyrinthian layouts only the garrison has the time and opportunity to get familiar with, booby traps to stall enemy progress, and explosive charges rigged to block off tunnel sections or collapse them entirely if they are about to be overrun. And so, these tunnels present no great weakness to the defence; the benefits of building them typically far outweigh their risks and costs. [[[OOC: Placeholder image until I figure out how to draw water ripples. Credit: awesomecontent, Freepik]]] Water ripples In addition to underground listening posts, defenders of a besieged castle would strategically place down many small water-filled cups, bowls, and other containers at the base of their outer walls and then routinely inspect the water for ripples. Ground vibrations being transmitted through the ground will cause ripples to form in the water. The closer the containers are to a source of strong vibrations (such as those typically created by tunnelling), the stronger the ripples will be. You can estimate the rough direction a tunnel is coming from by observing which containers in which sectors seem to be exhibiting the largest ripples even when nothing is happening nearby on the surface. When inspecting ripples in water containers, it would be advisable to do so when the area is still and quiet. Nearby people walking around, passing horses and wagons, blacksmiths striking their anvils, and heavy construction work, for example, will produce their own ground vibrations, which in turn may produce ‘false positive’ ripples. A few ways to mitigate background vibrations include cordoning off city sectors from foot, horse, and vehicular traffic and enforcing periods of strict silence while ripple inspections are going on. Moats The classic castle moat is not just difficult or impassable terrain for attackers on the surface. Another, lesser-known purpose of the moat is to hinder enemy undermining efforts. A moat by itself isn’t used to detect tunnelling, but it makes sound and vibration-based methods of tunnelling detection more effective. Moats force enemy miners to dig deeper underground in order to bypass them. To avoid digging into the moat and either exposing themselves to enemy fire or (if it is a wet moat) flooding their own tunnel, miners must often dig into lower, often rockier soil or — in areas with very thin soil layers — even the bedrock layer. Defenders can exploit this to their advantage. By forcing an enemy to tunnel through solid rock, this makes their tunnelling activities far easier to detect and gives defenders more time to plan and react. Tunnelling through solid rock is a lot more energy and effort-intensive than digging through soil, necessitating specialised tools like pickaxes and blasting charges. This, naturally, also produces a lot more noise. Sound also travels more easily through harder and denser solid materials like rock than in softer and looser materials like soil. The end result is that tunnelling sounds become more audible to anyone stationed at an underground listening post. A moat can also prevent undermining entirely. If the moat is dug deep enough to hit the local water table, it becomes virtually impossible to dig a tunnel under the moat without the tunnel immediately flooding with groundwater. The contents of wet moats can also leak into the tunnel. It is theoretically possible to drain away the water with, for example, waterproof wall and ceiling linings and powered water pump and drainage systems. But implementing these would generally be far more cost-intensive and time-consuming than it is worth, especially for tunnels that have a real risk of being countermined and (if they are intended for undermining) will be collapsed anyway, Recommended actions To protect important population centres and military installations, it would be within the interests of each realm to ensure its soldiers and town guards are well-informed about the threat of tunnelling and receive formal training in tunnelling detection. If the resources can be spared for it, preemptive countermines and listening galleries should be built underground ahead of any siege, and then — while the Harrower threat is still at large — consistently manned with rotating shifts of guards or civilian volunteers. In areas with thin soil layers, moats should also be dug at least as deep as the bedrock layer. If the water table is fairly high, digging down to the water table would be more ideal. Taking these actions would do a lot to mitigate the threat of the Harrower’s tunnel network. It would be better to do this now rather than waiting until the Harrower marches an army up to your own doorstep. The soil layer across most of Aevos typically seem to be no more than a few metres deep. The Harrower’s legion is likely doing much of its tunnelling deeper underground, somewhere within the bedrock layer. As they are mostly tunnelling through hard rock, their activities likely produce a lot of noise. And given how sound waves travel faster and farther through harder solids, vibrations from their tunnelling should travel far and fast across the land. This should make ground vibrations from their tunnelling activities fairly easy to detect. Because we would be able to detect and react to enemy tunnels fairly early, taking these preemptive measures should greatly diminish the threat of the Harrower’s forces undermining our cities and castles. They will not be able to advance on us from underground without our forces getting a good amount of advance warning and prep time. Unless, of course, the Harrower has mind-enslaved massive, fast-burrowing, and rock-eating Underdark creatures to do most of the digging. Or his forces have dug directly under us already and are just waiting for the best moment to strike from the closest tunnel exit. But in dark times like these we should try to be on the optimistic side.

{!} In a smoky corner of the Basking Turtle tavern in Beznov, Adria, Ahren Jaeger lay slumped over his usual table, seemingly half-dead. An inordinate number of empty Euler Max bottles lay strewn about the tabletop. Traces of smoke rose from the tip of his quill. This meant only one thing: the siege engineer was writing another essay. Some time later (after taking some herbal remedies and alchemical concoctions for his liver) he would travel around the various realms of Aevos, distributing printed copies of the following essay series to any public library that would accept them. For more centralised discussion, he would also pin a copy in a corner of the Adrian Quest Board along with a blank sheet of paper for people to write feedback on. {!} Right beneath our feet By Ahren Jaeger The Harrower readies his next strike from right under our very feet. Deep below the soil on which we stand, his forces are digging the world’s largest network of underground tunnels. He is likely using artificial tunnels, along with natural sections of the Aevosian Underdark, to move troops, equipment, and supplies around the continent undetected and relatively unopposed. He and his forces can wreak a lot of havoc with such tunnels at their disposal. The only thing limiting their sheer destructive potential is human imagination. The Harrower’s tunnel network could pose a serious threat to the realms of Aevos if we fail to enact timely and effective plans to neutralise it. I thus urge realm leaders to prepare their troops for tunnel warfare and commence countermining operations as soon as possible. It appears that the Harrower’s forces have already made a lot of construction progress, so it might not be very long until they do something truly terrible. We must do something to prevent (or at least soften) the coming blow. Preface As of the time of this pamphlet series’ publishing, there exists a powerful Darkspawn entity known as the Harrower. He appeared a few decades ago, enthralling the tribes of Ailmere under a wicked curse and enshrouding the northern taiga in a fog of voidal darkness. He still leads his legion of brainwashed Ailmerians in a war of subjugation against the rest of Descendantkind. The Harrower’s forces suffered no few costly defeats over the course of the war, and have since retreated back to the northern taiga to lick their wounds. But while, on the surface, it might look like they’ve put their campaign on pause, it would be a mistake to assume they’ve been lying dormant. After a skirmish involving the Harrower’s elite Chosen warriors, a concerning map was found on the body of one. This map, which consists of intricate carvings on a stone tablet, suggests the existence of a continent-wide underground tunnel network. It also implies a new, potentially more troublesome phase in the Harrower War. The Harrower War will probably feature quite a lot of tunnel warfare going forward. It isn’t something that happens very often in Aevos. And it’s reasonable to assume most fighters in most realms aren’t very experienced in it. Tunnel warfare requires a very different approach and mindset to more conventional warfare on the surface. So I am writing this pamphlet series to help people understand it better. The main goal of this pamphlet series is to equip the leaders, soldiers, adventurers and prospective combat engineers of Aevos with some basic knowledge of how tunnels are typically used in warfare and some idea of how to go about detecting and countering them. So when the Harrower tries invading our homes from below, at least we won’t be completely blindsided. An introduction to tunnel warfare Table of Contents Part One: Common uses of tunnels Part Two: Detecting tunnels Part Three: Scouting for tunnels Part Four: Destroying tunnels Part Five: Tunnel fighting Part One: Common uses of tunnels The pickaxe and shovel can be more devastating tools of war than any blade or cannon. Descendants have been weaponising tunnels in warfare for thousands of years, and often to decisive effect. They’ve brought down grand fortresses where massed artillery bombardments failed. They’ve empowered rag-tag bands of insurgents to fight much greater armies to a standstill. And more. The mundane hole in the ground can determine, and has determined, the course of entire battles. The utility of tunnels should not be underestimated. This section will go into some detail about a few of the more common military applications of tunnels. In siege warfare, engineers dig tunnels to undermine well-defended and artillery-resistant walls. In guerilla or asymmetric warfare, tunnels can benefit numerically and technically inferior forces as excellent force multipliers. They may dig tunnels to stealthily manoeuvre around an area, allowing them to flank and ambush superior enemy forces. They can also act as hidden bases of operations and as a strong means of area defence. Knowing that these applications exist and why they work will be a good starting point for understanding the potential threat posed by the Harrower’s tunnel network and how to go about dealing with it. Undermining Some walls are so heavily reinforced that they will never topple over no matter how many rocks or cannonballs you lob at them. In these cases, siege engineers can still breach those walls by using an age-old tactic called ‘undermining’. Undermining basically consists of digging a tunnel directly underneath a building’s foundations, building temporary supports to prop up the structure, and then destroying those supports (usually either by burning them away or blowing them up). A combination of gravity and mechanical stress will then cause the building above to fall into the tunnel. The tactic features heavily in sieges, in which walls are its usual target. When the Attacking side undermines a wall section, the resulting collapse often creates a huge breach in the defences through which their troops can assault the interior and eventually overwhelm the Defending side with superior numbers. The Defending side, having just lost their main advantage of fortifications, often surrenders before they get slaughtered. The threat of undermining should be a compelling reason why fortress commanders and city rulers should keep around dedicated teams of engineers and miners in times of war. Oftentimes the only viable ways for them to stop a besieging force from tunnelling under their walls are to either 1) dig a moat deep enough to reach the local water table or 2) build their own underground tunnel or ‘countermine’ to intercept and destroy the enemy’s before they can get too close. How to undermine a wall The basic process of undermining a wall hasn’t changed too radically over the millennia. The besieging side’s engineers figure out exactly how far away the target enemy wall section is, calculate how big a tunnel they need to dig and how much kindling or explosive ordnance they need to achieve a breach of a desired size, and then plot a path for their team to dig. Miners then dig into the ground with shovels and pickaxes, deep enough to avoid exposing themselves to enemy fire on the surface, but not so deep as to hit the local water table and end up flooding their entire tunnel with groundwater. Along the way, carpenters make shorings and supports to hold up the walls and ceilings. The team then sets up these supports, hauls debris to designated dumping areas outside, and keeps careful track of their precise location in relation to the target wall section. When they end up directly underneath the target wall section, they then destroy the supports under it while maintaining a safe distance. The resulting cave-in finally collapses the wall above. The two most popular methods for initiating the collapse involve the use of fire and explosives. The first method involves simply starting a large fire underneath a target structure to burn away the wooden supports. The second method replaces the slow-burning fire with a gunpowder explosion contained behind a sandbag wall. A small explosion should be sufficient to near-instantly destroy the tunnel’s supports. A larger explosion involving massive amounts of gunpowder can more thoroughly weaken or destroy a structure’s foundations, shake the entire structure at its very core, and potentially achieve even bigger collapses. The effectiveness of undermining compared to artillery bombardment It is perfectly possible to build a wall so thick and shock-absorbent that even cannonballs will bounce off of it, dealing no serious damage. Seeing this, it’s no wonder why the rulers and inhabitants of cities with such walls so often boast of their strength. They may even go as far as to claim their walls are invincible. This is a common folly. For while they can resist artillery bombardment, no land-based structure is completely invulnerable to undermining. At the moment, cannons are the most powerful mundane artillery available to Descendantkind. They use the explosively expanding gases released by burning gunpowder, funnelled through the narrow and partially enclosed confines of a gun barrel, to launch projectiles at high speeds and with great force. The destructive power of the average siege bombard far surpasses that of the average trebuchet; a wall that takes older siege engines months to destroy can be levelled in a few days by cannons. And so, cannons have largely replaced classical siege weapons when it comes to tearing down fortifications. But even gunpowder, mighty as it is, has its limits. By far, the most common type of cannon ammunition is a solid and somewhat loose-fitting spherical projectile called ‘round shot’ or ‘solid shot’. The destructive power of a cannonball (assuming it’s already strong and hard enough to not break apart or deform heavily on impact) mainly depends on its kinetic energy (the energy something has because of its motion), which is proportional to its mass and the velocity at which it impacts its target. Basically, the heavier the cannonball and the faster it is flying, the more damage it deals when it finally hits something. Cast iron cannonballs and corned powder have rendered many classical fortress designs practically obsolete, but the combination remains far from a be-all-end-all. Gunpowder can only propel an object so fast. And there also seems to be a soft limit to the weight of ammunition gunpowder is capable of launching at practical ranges without also blowing up the cannon and its crew. The very largest of siege bombards and mortars on Eos can fire stone or metal projectiles weighing a little more than a metric tonne. While these can utterly obliterate most classical-style curtain walls and castle towers with ease, defence-minded military engineers developed many innovations to mitigate the effectiveness of artillery. For example: solid shot fired from these same cannons would struggle against the thick and shock-absorbent brick-and-earth walls of a modern bastion fort or Oyashiman ‘shiro’ (castle). Of course, it is possible to make specially crafted ammunition or ‘Craftsman’s Shot’ that have more going on for them than just their kinetic energy. For example, engineers may incorporate explosive charges using low-density boomsteel or blasting potion gas. But these tend to be prohibitively difficult and expensive to manufacture at scale. So militaries generally stick with solid shot for the most part. When even concentrated artillery fire proves lacking, siege engineers must find other ways of achieving a breach. And oftentimes they resort to undermining. Against artillery-resistant walls, simply collapsing tunnels directly beneath them are often what ends up creating the breaches a besieging army needs to finally take a fortress by storm. This is because undermining weaponises the unrelenting force of gravity and turns a structure’s own (often huge) mass against it. At least for now, there are very few man-made weapons that can compare. Destroying large structures Various forces constantly act upon the things we build, even when we’re not actively trying to destroy them. To specify a few: Gravity always exerts a downwards force on our buildings and seeks to sink them into the ground. Wind blows against their walls, wobbling taller structures and constantly threatening to knock them over. The materials we make them out of also need to be able to withstand the ever-shifting weight of their moving occupants and the things said occupants put inside them. In areas prone to natural disasters like earthquakes, flooding, and hurricanes, they also need to be specially reinforced with Acts of God in mind. And of course, any building needs to be able to support its own weight so as to not fall apart on its own. One of, if not the most, important contributors to what keeps a building standing is its foundations. Foundations are critical to structural integrity: they bear the structure's load, they safely and more evenly transfer its weight onto the ground, and they stabilise it against horizontal movement. Without good foundations and a stable connection to the ground, larger and heavier structures will eventually sink into the soil and crack themselves open without any outside intervention. The job of the foundations becomes more difficult as the mass they must support increases. As a structure is built bigger (and thus heavier), its foundations must be exponentially stronger to support its weight and prevent the entire structure from collapsing. This is because of the Square–Cube Law: if you double the size of, say, a cube, its surface area is quadrupled, and its original volume is multiplied by eight. Essentially, as a structure grows linearly in size, its mass grows exponentially. So the larger a structure is built, the more it will take to keep it standing in the face of the various forces and stresses constantly seeking to displace it. And at some point, enlarging a structure becomes counterproductive; it becomes more prone to collapse as the inherent strength of its constituent building materials (or at least the ones available with our current level of technology) gets pushed to their limits. Undermining basically deletes foundations from the equation. Remove the ground below a target building section, and the only things left to hold it up are its connections to adjacent building sections that are still touching the ground. The entire weight of the undermined section continues acting as a strong downward force. But without any connection to the ground to support it, and the weight of the foundations themselves now heavily contributing, it puts itself and adjacent building sections under extremely high amounts of stress. The bigger and heavier a building, the greater the downwards force it will exert on itself, the greater the stresses it imposes on its own structure and constituent building materials. With larger and heavier structures, like castle or city walls, the inherent material strength of even strong building materials like stone brick often proves to be no substitute for solid foundations. And so, the undermined building section collapses, often taking parts of adjacent sections along with it. Sometimes, this may even start a domino effect that inflicts even more devastation against other parts of the building. Even the grandest of castle keeps, the tallest of city walls, and most imposing of evil villain towers are still very much susceptible (or are perhaps even more vulnerable) to undermining. No matter how strong people believe their walls to be, no one should ever feel complacent. The ground may just open up right under them. Guerilla warfare Tunnels feature prominently in guerilla warfare because it helps insurgents operate out of sight and often out of mind of enemy forces, which tend to be numerically and technically superior. As soon as guerillas get caught in a prolonged engagement or pitched battle, they typically get annihilated. They only manage to survive in the long term by avoiding battle until they find good opportunities to inflict great damage on the enemy while minimising their own losses. To that end, forces finding themselves fighting at a disadvantage often find great utility in tunnels. Tunnels as covert avenues of movement Underground tunnels allow guerilla forces to covertly move around fighters, equipment, and supplies without being noticed by enemies on the surface. If guerillas move around on the surface, they risk getting spotted and engaged even if they’re covered head-to-toe in camouflage. However, if the very ground is blocking direct line of sight and muffling sound, an enemy patrol may pass by on the surface completely oblivious to the fact that there’s an entire tunnel system in active use mere metres beneath their feet. When travelling on the surface is too dangerous and risky, tunnels can be a very stealthy and safe way to get from Point A to Point B. This can be exploited both offensively and defensively. Tunnels can enable fighters to covertly outflank their enemies and strike from various and unexpected angles and locations. In raiding operations, a tunnel could let them bypass enemy watchtowers and fortifications, strike targets deep inside enemy territory, and vanish before any large muster can be rallied against them. In the defence of an area, tunnels can be especially useful tools. Tunnels as underground strongholds With tunnels, a military force can maintain a powerful and prolonged presence even deep inside enemy territory while staying hidden. Engineers can expand rudimentary underground tunnels into veritable underground fortresses. Such tunnels may have all sorts of amenities such as sleeping quarters, storerooms, hospitals, training areas, latrines, recreational rooms, deep wells, and kitchens. A tunnel can be expanded so that even large military units can comfortably live within and operate from them for extended periods of time. If a tunnel network is allowed to develop to such great size and complexity, it can become extremely difficult for attackers to dislodge enemies from them. Underground tunnels also give great advantages to its defenders, making them difficult for attackers to clear out. Situated beneath layers of soil and perhaps even solid rock, they are naturally resistant to artillery bombardment and aerial attack. Through the use of trap doors, air locks, water locks, and ventilation pipes, larger and more complex tunnel networks can no longer be destroyed by simply bellowing fire or poison gases into an entrance. The narrow confines of small tunnels also make it easy to funnel intruders into booby traps like punji sticks, venomous animals and insects, and pitfalls. Adding to the difficulty of clearing out such tunnels, fighters who inhabit a tunnel system will likely grow intimately familiar with all its nooks and crannies over time. In defending it, they will use their superior terrain knowledge to their full advantage. It is also common for long-time inhabitants of a tunnel network to run drills simulating defending it in complete darkness. They may train their senses of smell and sound to extremely keen levels, such as to the point they can differentiate friend from foe just by how one moves and breathes around the environment. Attackers will often find themselves taking heavy casualties to traps and ambushes. Besieging a tunnel network and trying to starve out the defenders can also be rendered an ineffective tactic. A tunnel’s occupants may have tunnel sections unknown to the attackers or build entirely new branches leading outside the cordon. These could be used by the defenders for resupply or escape. They could also be used to launch sorties from beyond the cordon, allowing them to strike the attackers from the more exposed rear. When operating in an area where the enemy is known to use tunnels, one should never drop their guard. If such well-developed tunnels are encountered, there is typically no ‘easy’ way to get rid of them. The odds are that troops will need to delve inside and eliminate the tunnel’s inhabitants in hand-to-hand combat. And unfortunately for the attacking side, tunnel fighting tends to be a very brutal and messy affair compared to combat on the surface. Predictions for the Harrower’s strategy With uncontested control of the underground realm, a continent-wide underground tunnel network opens up a whole new world of tactical and strategic possibilities for the Harrower’s legion. Their new offensive strategy will likely feature the tunnel uses described above. The Harrower’s legion will likely build a number of underground bases — at least one stronghold in each realm they're targeting. Given their current less-than-successful track record of invading Aevosian lands, any forward operating base they build on the surface outside of Ailmere will probably get razed within months of them breaking ground. But if they build their bases underground, they will be a lot more difficult for Aevosian forces to detect and destroy in a timely manner. They can developed into excellent staging areas for offensive campaigns in relative safety. They can also make hidden supply depots to sustain large forces far away from Ailmere. And even if these bases do get discovered, clearing them out will be easier said than done. This is probably their best bet at projecting power beyond the borders of their enshadowed homeland, at least until they can regain enough strength to capture and hold significant territory on the surface. Tunnels would also enable them to wage asymmetric warfare campaigns within the realms of Aevos. For example: they can attack merchants and travellers on the roads, raid lightly-defended settlements, and ambush troop columns on the march before disappearing back underground. They would also be more successful than average at kidnapping people to create more mind-slaves for the Harrower; nearby tunnels entrances would be a very convenient means of escape. With escape routes more conveniently close-by, they can muster the confidence to pull off all manner of other shenanigans. With tunnels, the Harrower’s forces can cause a massive amount of damage and chaos by the time quick response forces arrive to stop them. Undermining will also probably play a key role in sieges. The Harrower’s forces can branch out from their main tunnels and dig up towards the base of any fortification that gives them trouble (should the local terrain permit it). They will probably rely on undermining a fair bit because don't have many other viable options for breaching the average city wall. It seems as if they have very limited access to gunpowder; instead of cannons, they rely on older and weaker siege weapons like trebuchets and onagers. Theoretically, they could match the firepower of siege bombards and mortars by building absurdly large trebuchets capable of launching massive boulders. But such projects would, realistically, be destroyed by fire arrows, sallying forces, or cannonballs long before they can be completed. Alongside the First Zenith’s Portal magics and the Chosens’ Shadow magic teleportation, tunnels are one of their few practical weapons for sieging down our cities. Things get a lot more complicated and unpredictable when you throw magic into the mix. The Harrower is an extradimensional Voidal entity whose powers are continuously growing and expanding. And among his followers – or at least the ones that we currently know of – are a number of powerful sorcerers: he commands Frost Witches, Necromancers, his Shadow Magic-wielding Chosen, and several generals (called Zeniths) with unique magical abilities such as Portal summoning and Self-cloning. Together, they can probably brainstorm and pull off any number of creative, unexpected, and devastating stunts by pooling their spells and combining them with the utility of tunnels. But rather than theorising what they could do, it would probably be more productive to try and physically shut down their ideas before they have the chance to surprise you. The Harrower’s tunnel network can not be ignored any longer. His tunnel warfare strategy poses a massive security risk to every realm of Aevos. If the stone tablet map is anything to go by, his legion already made quite a bit of progress. We must contest their control of the underground realm before it can be solidified any further. The more we idle, the more we undermine our own safety.

Making light armours viable The Techlock - Armaments post does well in summarising how well different kinds of ranged weapons can pierce different types of armour. While it can definitely be improved upon, it at least gets the job done. Along with a revamped version of the Armaments post, The LOTC team should consider writing up a 'Techlock - Armours' post conveniently categorising and educating people on different armour types while providing solid redlines people can readily refer to when arguments break out. For example, a full plate armour loadout may have a redline of reducing the number of blocks the wearer can move per turn. Whereas lighter armour loadouts would still permit full or only slightly inhibited movement. Something as simple as enforcing different official movement speeds for different armour loadouts would be both historically authentic and intuitive. It would go a long way towards making light armour legit viable. It would also be a lot easier to implement and enforce than an arbitrary stamina system. Historically, light infantry could harass heavy infantry with ranged fire and maintain a safe distance because of their superior tactical mobility. Light infantry had a clear tactical role on the battlefield that current movement rules make impossible to reflect. By allowing more lightly equipped players to viably kite more heavily equipped players to death, light infantry would finally have strength and purpose on LOTC. There isn't any actual need to nerf the protectiveness of plate armour, buff the power of existing mundane projectile weapons, or buff the protectiveness of light armours beyond what was realistic. Mobility was the entire point, and it makes for a great defense of its own. Ranged changes When it comes to the ranged changes, it'd probably be best to keep the system as simple and intuitive as it currently is. The current system of having a set number of emotes to shoot a specific type of ranged weapon worked alright. It can be summed up in like 1-2 sentences and it's easier for people to remember and keep track of. It also makes realistic sense. The emote counts for self-bows and arbalests really just needed to be reduced to 2 and 4 respectively to be viable in the action economy. And if we're going the magic system route, having a mana-like stamina system to limit how many projectiles someone can shoot from a certain weapon type before they get tired seems like it'd just make mundane ranged weapons even more useless. Given how short battles actually tend to be in terms of number of CRP rounds and how there is no standardised system to determine the success of hits or how much damage they'd do, in practice the limit would be probably either be so low it'd be frustrating and unrealistic or so high most people won't bother to memorise the system. Heavy Crossbow categorisation As for the suggestion for a new crossbow/arbalest categorisation, merging the crank crossbow and (windlass) arbalest into one simple category it can write redlines around is definitely a good idea. But I don't think it'd be advisable to call or think of the category as 'armour-piercers'. It's worth nothing that what many people here call the 'crank crossbow' and 'arbalest' are practically the same weapon. An arbalest is basically a medieval crossbow with a steel prod. That implies a draw weight so high that ordinary human muscles alone won't manage it anymore, necessitating a particularly strong loading mechanism to pull back the prod. The windlass and the cranequin (crank) just happened to be the two most powerful loading mechanisms available to medieval crossbowmen for drawing back their arbalests. The windlass and cranequin aren't quite the same. Different loading mechanisms are capable of different mechanical advantages, which in turn decides the maximum draw weight they can manage. Tod's Workshop, a YouTuber who recreates and field tests historically authentic medieval weapons, notes that the windlass has a mechanical advantage ratio of 78:1 and can manage draw weights exceeding 1,500lbs. Meanwhile, the cranequin is actually capable of a significantly higher mechanical advantage ratio of 182:1 and pulling back draw weights exceeding 2,000lbs. But when it comes to categorising weapons for the making of crafting a simple and practical combat system, this shouldn't matter too much. All it means in the end is that they both enable the use of crossbows with extremely high draw weights. It'd be more intuitive and appropriate to call the category the 'Heavy Crossbow' category. While the arbalest is certainly a powerful weapon, regardless if it's windlass or cranequin-loaded, it just wasn't powerful enough to beat the kind of armour implied by the average goon with a plate armour skin. Describing the category as 'armour-piercers' would be a bit of a misnomer that'd only encourage the kind of powergaming people hate about arbalests and (often wrongfully to a huge degree) dread about firearms. The 'power' of a medieval crossbow mainly depends on its draw weight, draw length, and how quickly the prod's material allows it to revert back to its original shape, along with the mass and shape of its projectiles. The main bottlenecks limiting an arbalest's power are its short draw length and the material properties of medieval steels. Steel can only bend so far before it reaches the point of plastic deformation or snaps. A steel prod will not bend anywhere near as far back as, for example, a yew wood bow with equivalent dimensions. The highest-quality medieval steels weren't exactly terrible, but they weren't quite on the level of homogenous modern carbon steels either. So increasing a crossbow's relative draw length to be more comparable to a self-bow just isn't a option unless the prod is made of stronger and more flexible fantasy metals. One can also increase an arbalest's draw weight by making the prod larger and thicker. But the further one goes in doing that, the heavier and more unwieldy the crossbow becomes. And at some point, it will face diminishing returns. The limited draw length of a crossbow meant that even the heaviest arbalests were only roughly equivalent in power to the strongest self-bows, which compensated for their lower draw weights with higher draw lengths and the higher speeds at which their materials flexed. For a crossbow to qualify into the aforementioned 'Heavy Crossbow' category, the basic requirements would be that it 1) needs a powerful loading mechanism to handle its extreme draw weight and 2) is light enough that a normal human being can typically wield it without needing support its weight with a bipod, tripod, or some other kind of stand. The second requirement practically limits the handheld arbalest to a rather low power ceiling, to the point it wouldn't really be appropriate to call it an 'armour piercer' unless the target is wearing some very antiquated, outdated, or low-quality armour. The main drawback to the arbalest, as an infantry weapon, is that its prod and loading mechanism were relatively heavy. The weight of a medieval arbalest and its accessories were in the ballpark of 7 kg. In comparison, a historical zweihander weighed up to 4kg and historical halberds weighed about 2-3kg. Arbalests weren't weapons medieval soldiers could comfortably carry around everywhere they go on campaign. The large weight of arbalests meant soldiers mostly only brought them out during sieges, when battle lines are mostly static and tactical mobility isn't much of a concern. By the time we got the archetypical knight in shining plate armour in real life, the arbalest had been rendered obsolete a long, long time ago. Late Medieval plate armour came about to counter the rise of handheld firearms. The arbalest could not contend with the latest developments in armour technology and metallurgy. It also could not complete with the much cheaper and more powerful handgonne, arquebus, and musket. According to historian Alan Williams in The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Chapter 9.5, Page 947), the typical arbalest simply could not produce the necessary kinetic energy to effectively pierce the armour of a knight wearing early 15th-century Milanese-style plate armour. Contemporary armourers also made it a standard to prove the effectiveness of their armours by shooting them at point blank range with arbalests and showcasing the shallowness of the resulting dents. Armourers in later centuries also did the same thing with pistols. If the most important pieces of plate armour (such as the breastplate) could be pierced to serious or lethal depths by an arbalest bolt or pistol bullet, they were practically unsellable. Not even counting fantasy materials, LOTC players have easy access to the best armours of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods. Meanwhile, the strongest mundane ranged weapon available to counter them was historically developed to combat armours and metal quality standards from many generations prior. Basically, if you shoot a guy square in the breastplate with the typical arbalest, even at point blank range, your target generally should not be going down. An arbalest bolt won't pierce deep enough to cause serious injury. It won't even significantly knock them backwards either thanks to Newton's Third Law of Motion. People wearing modern bulletproof vests can casually get shot square in the chest with a 7.62x51m NATO cartridge fired from a battle rifle and still not go down. An arbalest bolt might be multiple times heavier than a modern rifle bullet, but they're still being loosed with only a fraction of the kinetic energy. The arbalest is just not that strong, especially not against the standard armour the average player will probably be wearing to battle. For an arbalest to consistently defeat plate armour, the weapon would need to either 1) be upscaled to crew-served siege artillery (at which point, you end up with the 'Mounted Crossbow' already described in the Armaments thread) or 2) incorporate certain fantasy materials and energy-efficient design features from modern-day compound bows and crossbows. If LOTC needs a medieval-friendly niche for an actual 'armour-piercing' mundane ranged weapon, the team is deadass better off just introducing handheld firearms rather than awkwardly forcing arbalests into a role it historically became inadequate for. Using crossbows while mounted For the ruling on using crossbows while mounted, it'd make more sense to restrict reloading on horseback rather than just completely banning its usage on horseback entirely. Operating a cranequin mechanism on top of a moving horse would be awkward for sure. Even moreso for a windlass, which necessitates the use of a stirrup at the end of the crossbow to anchor the whole weapon system to the ground as the user winded up the windlass. But there shouldn't be anything stopping a cavalryman from simply holding and shooting a crossbow that's already loaded and doesn't have its loading mechanism attached.

In a corner of the Basking Turtle tavern in Beznov, Adria, a half-conscious Ahren Jaeger fought what was perhaps his hardest battle in years: the struggle to finish the next of many essays. Dark bags formed beneath bloodshot eyes. Veins pulsed all over his brain. His heart thumped against his ribcage. His body swayed back and forth as the weary and ageing siege engineer struggled to stay upright, anchored to his table only by the marginal pressure his now-smoking quill still exerted on the paper. All he could do to stave off collapse was take a swig from his nth Euler Max bottle and pray he’d still be conscious by the end of the current paragraph. It was not the first he drank, nor would it be anywhere near the last. It was clear just from the clusters of empty Euler Max bottles littering his table that he spent no few consecutive all-nighters writing this essay. He wanted it done as soon as possible. But at the same time, he put off its completion for far too long. He lost count of how many energy drinks he poured down his gullet in the process of writing the essay. But it was a high-enough number to convince him that sleep deprivation and liver failure would probably kill him long before any Spook could run him through. But so long as his efforts ended up helping his fellow Descendants in some meaningful way, then it all would have been worth it. An indeterminate amount of Euler Maxes, whale steaks, and salted wyvern jerky later, Ahren would publish the following essay. He would later travel to Nevaehlen and personally distribute copies to the local Greenblades and any other allies involved in the Vale’s defence before finally passing out at the bottom of a sinkhole somewhere in the city. Ahren needed all the energy he could muster. For he had a lot more work to do but very little time to do it. On the defence of the Vale Part Two: Weaponizing terrain Preface My name is Ahren Jaeger, a siege engineer of Adria. In this turbulent era where Darkspawn run rampant across the world, my backstory is far from unique. Long-story-short: Darkspawn toppled the walls of my hometown and ate my mother. The scene still haunts me nearly four decades later. Today, Darkspawn continue to sow tragedy and chaos wherever their unholy ilk are permitted to fester, stamping down on Descendantkind’s freedom to thrive and prosper in peace. I pray every day that good Descendants will emerge victorious in the struggle against evil, but we can’t expect God to do all the work. It has thus become my mission to exterminate the Darkspawn menace from this world, or at least help pave the way for those that will. As of the time of this essay’s publishing, a powerful Darkspawn entity known as the Harrower has enthralled the tribes of Ailmere and set out on a warpath against all of Descendantkind. One of the realms he’s currently targeting is the Vale of Nevaehlen. In response to a request for help, I deployed to the Vale as part of a small military advisory team led by Cathan, one of Aevos’s foremost experts on combating Darkspawn. Simply put, our goal is to help the Valefolk defend themselves against the Harrower. I haven’t known the people of Vale for long, but, in my book, they have proven to be good people. They do not deserve to become puppet-slaves like the Ailmerian tribes, who now exist only as walking blood sacrifices. I wish only for the Valefolk to live happily in peace. Cathan and I have been helping the Valefolk prepare against the Harrower for just over three years now, and I’m happy to report they are making good progress. I also noticed after publishing my previous essay that the On the defence of the Vale series’ readership grew beyond the Vale. So with this expanded readerbase in mind, going forward I will mainly aim to give general tactical advice while using the Harrower War and the Vale as primary examples to help illustrate my points. This essay is the second part of my On the defence of the Vale series. This, along with future entries, will compile a number of ideas brought up in discussions by myself, Cathan, the Valefolk, and their allies on how the Vale’s terrain can be weaponized to optimal and devastating effect against potential invaders. If at least the important ideas get implemented, Nevaehlen is sure to become a veritable bulwark against the Shadowtide along with any other threat that dares threaten its people. I sincerely hope this helps. Illustration A: Nevaehlen’s eastern cliffs from across the river. The Isle of Nevaehlen makes for a very imposing target for most would-be attackers, largely in thanks to its natural terrain being very troublesome to overcome through most ordinary means. Weaponizing terrain The Vale of Nevaehlen benefits from some of the most defensible natural terrain in Aevos. It sits on a lightly forested plateau atop a mountainous island separated from the mainland by a deep, wide river and a near-complete ring of steep cliffs. Geography like this should put off all but the most creative, well-prepared, and determined invaders. But of course, as history keeps proving time and time again, deterrence never guarantees lasting peace; war always breaks out sooner or later. And when that happens, the Vale’s natural geography will not drive out an attacking force by itself; Nevaehlen’s Greenblades will still need to stand and fight. The enemy will likely bring overwhelming numbers of manpower and equipment to balance out the Valefolks’ control of key terrain. Optimal use of the island's terrain, both natural and man-made, will prove key in winning against such overwhelming odds. ‘Terrain’ is defined as an area of land when considering its features. For example: a flat and mostly empty mountain plateau can be described as flat terrain, heavy rainfall can turn vast areas of soil into muddy (and sometimes even impassable) terrain, and the more heavily built-up areas of a city can be described as dense urban terrain. The terrain can play a big role in deciding the course and outcomes of battles, campaigns, and even entire wars. It determines how an army can move its troops, their equipment, and their supplies through an area. It determines how easily troops can capture and hold an area. It determines how a battle may be fought in an area all the way down to the thought process and actions of individual soldiers. Terrain analysis should be a fundamental key skillsfor any soldier, whether they be a rank-and-file grunts or a top-level commander. To neglect sparing a thought for terrain ahead of an upcoming battle is to invite disaster. Considering that the preeminent threat currently facing Nevaehlen is the Harrower (at least at the time of this essay’s writing), the Valefolk likely can not afford too many such military disasters before their nation simply ceases to exist. The Harrower is a supernatural extra-dimensional entity who commands a legion of dedicants and beasts enthralled by a curse simply called the ‘Mark’. He grows his powers through the spilt blood of the Marked. Should he conquer a city, its inhabitants will, at best, be ritually sacrificed on an altar or forced to help spill more blood for the Harrower until the day they die. The Valefolk face a fight for their nation's very survival; it would be thus be in their best interests to take the threat seriously and weaponise every advantage at their disposal. This should especially include their island’s natural terrain; after all, it is one of the Vale’s strongest defensive assets. The practicality of terrain analysis and usage still remains even when considering the existence of things that are not bound by the spatial limitations of ordinary human movement. Aevos has no shortage of threats with the capability to casually bypass or outright ignore most unfavourable natural terrain and man-made fortifications. For example: There are many threats that fly, teleport, phase through solid walls. Counted among the Harrower’s dedicants are: soldiers who can ride wall-shattering Northern Mammoths, high-flying Thundermaw Ravens, and highly-mobile Goat Cavalry; his First Zenith, a white-haired woman who can summon a fog of magical darkness and open gateway portals within said fog; and his elite corps of Chosen, each of whom is a mighty spellblade who can teleport between shadows. With such foes at the Harrower’s disposal, it is not completely unreasonable to think at first ‘why bother caring about optimal terrain use when the Harrower has so many things that don’t have to?’ This is because the threat of things that ignore terrain does not preclude the threat of things that do not ignore terrain. For all the Harrower’s powers, the bulk of his legion is composed of more-or-less ordinary human ‘Thralls’ who still need to use their own two feet to move around. When people go off to war against the Harrower, the vast majority of fighting typically comes down to locking swords against the common Thrall. The Chosen, the Mammoth riders, the Thundermaw Raven riders, the Goat riders, the First Zenith — for all their strengths, they are neither numerous nor powerful enough on their own to destroy the Harrower’s enemies entirely by themselves; their actual tactical purposes all boil down to supporting the ‘main push’ of the Thralls. The Harrower’s elite forces can also be countered rather straightforwardly, without needing to take too much focus away from preparations against the less extraordinary Thrall. In short: Thundermaw Ravens can be shot down with ballistas and their lightning attacks safely redirected by tall structures and lightning rods. Mammoths are big targets for artillery. Goats ridden as cavalry can not scale steep slopes anywhere near as easily as unencumbered ones can, owing to their riders greatly weighing them down and shifting their weight distributions and centres of gravity significantly further upwards; without the factors that enable mountain goats to traverse mountainous terrain, the Goat Riders would realistically come crashing down the cliffs should they attempt to scale it, so the their movements can be restricted similarly to the legion’s heavy infantry. Furthermore, even the First Zenith and the Chosens’ shadow-based portal and teleportation powers have limitations, and can be countered and mitigated to manageable levels by upgrading Nevaehlen’s lighting infrastructure to be more comprehensive and reliant on magical lighting sources. This will be expanded on in later essays in this series. While the ‘Shoot the Mage First’ rule obviously still applies, anyone fighting the Harrower must recognise that the common Thrall still remains a main threat on the battlefield; to neglect preparations against the rank-and-file Thrall in order to focus on the Harrower’s more elite, magical, and special forces is sheer folly. It is perfectly doable to acknowledge and plan around the existence of things that ignore terrain without neglecting to acknowledge and plan around things that do not ignore terrain. Even though there exist dragons that can fly and breathe fire, does that make people who bother adding walls, gates, and towers to their settlements complete morons? It does not. This is because most people still recognise that the threat of ordinary Descendant bandits and armies killing them and razing their homes is still very much a thing. And it is a threat very much worth preparing against, lest their settlements collapse long before a dragon has the chance to. People still fortify their cities and castles with full awareness that ordinary walls won’t stop every conceivable threat in existence. However, by placing down basic, fundamental defences, they get the security, freedom, and peace of mind to prepare more specific counters to things that can not be stopped by normal fortifications. The same logic applies for using fortifications and natural terrain against the diversity of threats within the Harrower’s legion. No matter the opponent, any soldier worth their salt should always study the terrain of battlefields, potential and imminent, and think about how the terrain could potentially impact a coming battle. A combination of basic terrain knowledge and a bit of critical thinking can go a long way towards achieving tactical and strategic success. To pull off the best possible defence of the Vale, each and every defender must at least: Have basic knowledge the lay of the land, Have a decently formed idea of how the natural terrain is incorporated into their defence plans, and Actually physically move to exploit the terrain when the time to fight approaches. If nobody has the faintest clue where to go and what to do when the enemy comes knocking, they are in for a bad time. It will be even worse if they do actually have all this information floating around in their heads but still end up standing around, twiddling their thumbs, and doing jack-all the whole time as enemies make landfall on the island’s shores, scale its slopes, overrun half the island, and start battering down the city’s walls unopposed. Everyone in the Vale must take action and play at least some kind of active role in the defence of their own community. This fight involves everyone, whether they like it or not. The contents of this essay should help them in that regard. The main purpose of this essay is to give Nevaehlen’s commanders, Greenblades, and allies a more in-depth and scientific understanding of how to weaponise the Vale’s natural and artificial geography. This will let them hold better-informed and more active defence discussions, which should in turn lead to better tactical and strategic decision-making. It should also help guide the Vale’s architects, engineers, and builders in considering the terrain as they expand their budding civilization beyond the ruins of Talar'nor to other parts of their island. The security the people of the Vale will get from a more optimal and defence-minded approach to construction and terrain usage will pay massive dividends in future prosperity. Of course, to obtain that security, the Greenblades actually have to physically go and study their nation's terrain with more conscious thought put towards defence. Staring at squiggles of ink on paper is no substitute for real-life experience. Illustration B: A simplified and ‘lightly’-annotated map of Nevaehlen’s natural defences. This was developed over the course of a few walks along the cliffs and boat rides along the shores. How to study the terrain: A crash course Terrain analysis can be largely the same as taking a casual stroll and appreciating the scenery. It just involves a bit more critical thinking. When doing terrain analysis, the first thing to think about is the mission: to what end is all of this effort going to achieve? For example: In the context of the Harrower War, the mission is basically to defend Nevaehlen against a siege by the Harrower’s legion. The success criteria is that Nevaehlen is not destroyed and the Harrower’s troops are forced to leave the island and the Vale alone. The Greenblades can probably achieve this goal by decisively defeating the Harrower’s forces with attrition; if the defenders kill enough of the enemy’s troops, the Harrower may just decide conquering the Vale isn’t worth the cost, back off, and maybe find an easier target to convert into blood sacrifices. Defenders should try to identify the follow things: Avenues of approach and withdrawal — What routes and methods could attackers possibly take to attack the Vale? Should things go south for the defenders, what routes can they take to retreat back to safety? How will the features of these routes specifically affect the way people move through it? Cover and concealment — What natural and artificial terrain features, magical abilities, or tactics could attackers use to protect themselves from being fired upon by defenders or hide their approach from sentries? Likewise, what can the defenders use to protect themselves from enemy fire or keep their own movements hidden from the attackers’ scouts? Obstacles — What terrain features, natural and artificial, could block, hinder, or funnel the movement of the attackers and defenders? Observation spots and fields of fire — Where are the most convenient spots for the attackers and defenders’ scouts and commanders to observe the course of battle from? What would be the most practical possible spots to observe the important parts of the battlefield from? From which advantageous positions can defenders set up the best possible angles and lines of sight to rain down the most effective possible fire on approaching attackers? From where can the attackers best fire back at the defenders? Key terrain — Which specific areas can the attackers and defenders fight at a considerable advantage over the other? Which areas of the battlefield would be crucial for either side to control in order to assert dominance over the island and achieve military success? If possible, the best way to go about identifying these things is to personally familiarise oneself with the terrain. A nice, long stroll around the battlefield long before the fight even begins is an effective way to get the above information. For many people, actually seeing things with their own eyes sticks in the mind better than looking at words on paper or lines and colours on a map. If personally surveying the terrain is not feasible for whatever reason, studying detailed military maps can also work. Such maps show details like grids with XYZ coordinates, accurate terrain contours, and the precise height of the terrain above or below sea level. But on the other hand, these kinds of maps are not very common; Aevos has a dire shortage of the geographers, land surveyors, cartographers, and so on with the needed knowledge, skills, and motivation to produce them. Most maps in circulation are rather stylised and only show a basic overhead view of an area; to use these simpler maps effectively, it must be combined with personal knowledge from surveying the terrain. Once knowledge of terrain is gathered, that information should be noted down somewhere as soon as possible. It is only natural for people to forget things. It is generally useful to keep a notebook around to write things down or draw quick sketches in. Even obvious or seemingly insignificant observations should be put on paper, for even the little things can end up being significant or useful to remember much later down the line. Doing this allows oneself and the people they are working with to easily and conveniently visualise the terrain in their heads without having to keep walking around the battlefield over and over again every time they forget and want to check back on something. Aside from writing down the information in text, it also helps to draw and annotate maps. These can be shared with others and helps everyone to visualise the information in word-heavy discussions. An example would be Illustration B above, which marks terrain obstacles and various potential avenues of approach. A picture paints a thousand words. Doing at least some basic terrain analysis should give combatants a good clue on how things will probably go in an upcoming battle. The more potential enemy actions that defenders anticipate and prepare contingencies for, the lower the chance of the defenders getting caught off-guard and forced to fight at a severe disadvantage. The more of a general idea people have of what to do when something happens, the better battles will generally go for them. While it is definitely crucial to be able to think on one’s feet and adapt to a changing battlefield (as no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy), this is no excuse to not bother coming up with any plan at all and simply wing everything. Failure to plan is planning to fail. Illustration C: Nevaehlen's eastern walls built atop the island’s cliffs. The combination of cliffs and tall, solid walls in close concert makes for an extremely difficult obstacle for attackers to overcome, likely forcing them to seek other ways of breaching the city. Terrain and construction Nevaehlen’s fairly spacious, flat, and defensible mountain plateau provides a lot of prime real estate for the civilisation to expand into. But as spacious as it is, none of that space should be wasted. The world can be a violent, brutal, and merciless one at times. Therefore, it would be wise for any new upgrades and expansions to the Vale to be built with the defence of the nation and its people as a high priority. As soon as invaders land on the Vale's shores, houses turn into forts, garden fences become barricades, canals become moats — any and all civilian infrastructure will suddenly become military infrastructure, every aspect of the environment suddenly becomes part of the defence. Failure to plan and build with defence in mind may lead to pain and regret later down the line. As a general rule: before building a new settlement or fortification, it would be wise to consider the ways in which the locale’s natural terrain can make the task of defending it easier or harder. On a similar note, when planning the layout and placement of streets, alleys, buildings, and decorations within a settlement, it is advisable to think about the ways the specific arrangement of urban terrain being created might affect the course of potential battles that could be fought at the site later down the line. Even seemingly minor design choices can end up playing a significant role in the defence of the nation. For example: Two opposing rows of connected houses can act as a funnel for enemy troops, making them more vulnerable to traps, artillery fire, and thrown potions. The canopy of an inconveniently placed tree can block line of sight for friendly archers firing down at street-level enemies from a settlement’s walls, towers, and rooftops. A settlement’s curtain wall built too close to a large rock or the branches of a large tree on the outside could be easy for enemies to parkour over. A curtain wall placed too far away from a nearby cliff might buy time until coastal erosion drags it into the sea, but this would come at the cost of opening up more viable space for enemies to set up raid ladders; this would force defenders to further spread themselves out to protect these still-vulnerable walls from infiltrators, thereby negating the defensive advantage of building by the cliffs in the first place. Because almost any aspect of the environment can end up acting as part of the Vale’s defensive infrastructure, construction going forward must be built with more practical consideration to defence. If engineers can incorporate advantageous terrain features into a defence, they can end up with very strong fortifications while saving a lot of time, effort, and resources. It would be much cheaper and easier to build a strong defensive position using what is already provided by Mother Nature than if they were to try and accomplish the exact same thing while also doing extra terraforming, building everything from scratch, and compensating for a location’s inherent weaknesses. For a case in point: The former Principality of Talar’nor, whose territory the Vale of Nevaehlen inherited, is a textbook examples of people seamlessly incorporating advantageous natural terrain into their nation’s defence. The Talar’nori picked a very defensible spot to build their main city. It sprawls across the northeastern half of the island with over three-quarters of its perimeter naturally protected from direct assault by tall, steep, and rocky cliffs. The city’s northern, eastern, and southeastern walls (except in one certain area) complement the natural defences by keeping out mountain climbers and parkour artists. All this makes the city a rather tough nut to crack, even in its ruined state. The result of this rather clever defence-minded approach to city building is that it leaves an invading army only a few vaguely viable avenues of approach with which to invade the Vale. This includes the narrow and crumbling old Talar’nori bridge on the east side of the city. It also includes two narrow slopes on the north and south sides of the island, which are only marginally less steep and hazardous than their adjacent cliffs. All of these approaches make for advantageous key terrain for the Vale’s defenders, and can be blocked off rather easily. The bridge can be blown to deny the enemy an easy river crossing or stepping stone for teleport jumps. And the slopes can be made even more hellish to scale by strategically placed forts, fortified settlements, or field fortifications. It should also be noted that defensibility does not have to be mutually exclusive with aesthetics either. It is perfectly possible to build a place that both looks good and is practical to defend. While making actually defensible architecture would require a bit more thought than usual, the Vale’s people will surely appreciate the increased security and safety. It also saves on time and effort compensating for weak defences at the last minute when invaders actually come knocking. It is typically better to do things right the first arounds rather than try to fix things later. A useful thought exercise for anyone defending anywhere is to put themselves in the shoes of an attacker and challenge themselves to think up ways to conquer the location themselves. If defenders walk around imagining themself as the one actually having to besiege or assault the place, it makes it a lot of easier to identify what weaknesses the enemy can potentially take advantage of for an easier win; what obstacles might make it less easy to win the fight; and brainstorming how they would exploit these weaknesses, overcome these obstacles, and achieve victory in the easiest and most efficient way possible. With all these considerations in mind, defenders can then think more effectively about how to address weaknesses in their defences and better deal with potential enemy approaches. If the mind still comes up blank for ideas, it is worth visiting a library and studying the past. There is a whole world of revelation to be seized just from reading up on historical battles and commanders. Alternatively, one can also consult the experience and wisdom of people in other nations who have been in a similar boat. When it comes to warfare, no one should care about plagiarism if it helps them win. The Vale’s natural terrain is a massive force multiplier: if properly utilised, it would effectively grant the island’s defenders the combat effectiveness of a force much larger than their actual size. Well-thought-out fortifications are another big force multiplier, which grant the defenders the ability to take on much larger forces with significantly less difficulty compared to fighting a pitched battle on a field. Smartly combining advantageous natural terrain with decent fortifications would allow the Vale’s defenders to fend off invading forces many times larger than their own. Adopting a more tactical and strategic mindset towards the expansion of the Vale will, over time, result in a much safer, more secure, and more prosperous nation. Illustrations D and E: A 1-metre-thin section of curtain wall on the south side of the city. It is likely that enemies will immediately identify it as a weakness and topple it with a trebuchet, thus opening up what most would think to be an easy path directly into the heart of the city. This can be either a good or a bad thing depending on how the Vale’s defenders prepare for the scenario. On intentional ‘weak points’ There is a (rather concerningly) common military and architectural philosophy in Aevos that people should intentionally leave big, glaring weaknesses in their defences ‘tO mAkE tHiNgS mOrE fUn’, ‘bEcAuSe iT iS mOrE aEsThEtIc’, or 'iT wOuLd mAkE fOr A bEtTer sToRy'. If anyone were to seriously and unironically suggest such an idea in the middle of a planning session, immediately kill that person on the spot before they can contribute another word to the discussion. This will, in most cases, be doing the entire defence a big favour; such people end up helping no one but the enemy. It should always be assumed the opposing team will actively do their best to win. One should never plan a defence as if the enemy will hold back for childish and silly reasons like fun and fairness. Not every potential opponent out there is so honourable and chivalrous. When most people identify a weakness in any fight, it stands to reason that they will try to exploit the hell out of it. To fail to take potential enemies seriously is to invite disaster the moment a smart, cunning, and unchivalrous opponent comes along and takes advantage of this mindset. A settlement is a huge investment for everyone involved in its founding and expansion. It is where they live, work, and relax. It would be a painful waste to establish a settlement, nurture its growth, and see it rise to prosperity, only for someone of reasonable intelligence to come along and destroy it with minimal effort, all because someone's dumb opinion was not ignored. Losing something one has a significant stake in seldom ever ends up being fun anyway. However, there are times it is tactically advantageous for defenders to not build fortifications to be too strong or optimal. While these may seem like weak links in an otherwise strong defence, they are in fact bait meant to entice the enemy into acting in a predictable manner that can be planned around or lure the enemy into a trap. This approach can often prove more effective than chasing the fantasy of a truly invincible fortification. To quote a certain famous Li-Ren general: 'All warfare is based on deception'. Competent attackers will generally try to make the best possible moves to achieve victory without wasting too much manpower and resources. For example: if they can bloodlessly starve a fort’s defenders into submission without worrying about time or an enemy relief force, they likely will not bother losing massive amounts of troops and equipment by launching an assault on the fort. If they do need to assault a fort, they may try to undermine the walls or concentrate artillery fire to create a wide breach for troops to flood through rather than scaling the walls a few men at a time with ladders and siege towers. If they do need to scale the walls, they will try to avoid more strongly defended wall sections in favour of weaker ones. For an attacker to fight less than optimally when doing something as difficult and costly as assaulting a competently defended fortification will only incur great losses. It is also worth noting that, no matter how strongly one may build a fortification, someone will always eventually think up a creative and unexpected way to overcome or bypass the obstacle. For example: the Harrower’s First Zenith is likely Aevos’ foremost expert at thinking with (shadow) portals and can probably find or create an obscure gap to exploit in even the most thorough of magical lighting infrastructure. Likewise, the Chosen can probably find similar opportunities to infiltrate the Vale and sabotage the defence from the inside. Another potential bypass they may likely try to exploit is through the sewer or cavern networks beneath the Vale. Other enemies besides the Harrower can probably think of countless other ways to pierce the Vale if given enough time. It is simply impossible for the human mind to conceive of every possible idea to conquer a place and put into practice a fool-proof way to totally invalidate it. One should never underestimate human creativity and ingenuity. This is why dangling seemingly easy and straightforward options in front of attackers’ faces often turns out rather effective. Attackers will generally try not to make life any harder for themselves than necessary. Most commanders would rather do what is easy, obvious, tried, and tested than hurt their brains or waste time brainstorming elaborate and unconventional schemes. This is typical human psychology, and it can be observed throughout the rest of Descendantkind as well. Of course, this bait is not guaranteed to work on everyone. A novice enemy commander may rush headfirst into a trap, hook, line, and sinker. But a wiser, more well-studied, and overall more competent commander would probably be fully aware of this tactic and hold back their forces until they think of a better approach. In any case, the wise commander does not seek to create insurmountable obstacles, but dilemmas. If attackers face only obstacles that each seem too difficult to tackle head-on, they will simply hold back until they eventually think of an unexpected and creative solution. Defenders should instead want the attacker to act suboptimally and make mistakes. This can be achieved by just crossing out most of the enemy’s ‘easy’ options and leaving as remainder the ones where the defenders can most readily turn the tables on the attackers. Attackers should ideally be incentivised to act in predictable ways the defenders have already prepared contingencies for. This is not necessarily saying that trying to create a good all-around defence is folly. All parts of a defence should be fairly solid. The point is that defenders should never permit a weakness in a defence without first crafting a solid and cunning plan to punish the enemy for moving to exploit it. Illustration F: The Northern Slope from the top. It is perhaps the steepest and most perilous of the two slopes permitting entry to the Nevaehlen plateau from the shoreline. Illustration G: The Southern Slope from near the shoreline. There is a fairly defensible ridgeline at the top of the slope, though a curve on the slope blocks line of sight between the shore and ridge. Further development at and around the slope will be needed to make it harder for invaders to conquer. Conclusion The Valefolk have much to gain and little to lose by adopting a more tactical mindset towards the development of their civilisation. Though the Greenblades are capable fighters who have done well to maintain the Vale’s freedom and independence thus far, the defences they inherited from the Talar’nori and Mother Nature will be nowhere near enough to weather a serious assault by the armies of the Harrower or larger Descendant realms – or at least not in their current state. The people of the Vale must take immediate action to improve on their homeland’s defences before the enemy makes their move. To this end, it would greatly benefit them to take another, more critical look at their island's terrain and seriously review the state of their defences. It would also greatly benefit them to do so with firmer understandings of terrain analysis and terrain exploitation in mind. If they instead just leave things till last and haphazardly panic-improvise field defences just as an invasion force is about to make landfall, they will most likely end up losing the war. Wisely thought-out preparation will be key to victory. The Vale of Nevaehlen has the potential to grow into a veritable fortress-nation, one of the most fearsome strongholds in the entire continent, even. Surrounded on all sides by towering cliffs and deep water, the Vale has the natural geography to make it happen without too much cost or effort. All it would take is for the Valefolk to achieve this is to the initiative and make more active and optimal use of their home field advantage going forward. The Vale’s natural terrain is its strongest defensive asset. To not properly expoloit it may as well be shooting themselves in the foot.

{!} Hot from the printing presses of Beznov, Adria, Ahren would submit this essay for peer review by the Vale of Nevaehlen's Greenblades and any other allies involved in the Vale's defence. {!} On the defence of the Vale Part One: Countering the Chosen Preface My name is Ahren Jaeger, a siege engineer from Adria. I set foot in the Vale of Nevaehlen a while back along with Cathan ahead of an upcoming siege by the Harrower. I have absolutely no connection to Nevaehlen, nor do I know any of its inhabitants on a personal level. But I’m going out of my way to help ensure the good people of the Vale win this battle anyway. My reasons why aren’t very complex. Long-story-short: Darkspawn tore down the walls of my hometown and ate my mother. And today, they continue to threaten Descendantkind’s freedom to prosper peacefully on this continent. So I made it my life’s mission to exterminate Darkspawn from this world. The Harrower, with the literal and figurative shadow he is casting across the continent, is one such blight. So GOD Willing, I shall see to it that the Harrower and his legion of darkness are driven off this island (or die trying). Although, I will admit that I am not much of a fighter. I don’t have the strength of an uruk, mastery over the Void, or the blessing of a god. Nearly all of my weapons are completely mundane in nature. And neither am I particularly proficient in using them compared to the average Adrian. My presence on the front lines as a combatant won’t matter much at all. But what I can do is lend my knowledge and writing ability (or lack thereof) as a scholar. Even just a bit of knowledge sharing should go a long way towards turning the Vale into a great bulwark against the encroaching darkness. I spent months intensively surveying Nevaehlen’s urban and natural terrain to assess the Vale’s defensibility. I walked along the city’s walls, climbed its towers, descended into caves and sinkholes, and clambered into the ruins of the civilisation that preceded the Vale. I also sought insights from the local townspeople, who kindly took the time to show me the important places around town. My conclusion is not optimistic. The fortifications Nevaehlen inherited from the civilisation before it aren’t very defensible, and the entire Vale could be overrun by one serious assault by any vaguely competent and determined attacker — and that’s without even considering the teleportation and shadow magics possessed by the Harrower’s forces. Nevaehlen’s defences need some serious overhauling if it is to hold off a siege without extreme difficulty. Everyone in the Vale needs to mobilise and act together to improve on their home's defences, or else barely anything will get done by the time the Harrower launches his first big assault. This isn’t a burden that just a tiny few individuals can shoulder on their own. This essay constitutes ‘Part One’ of a short series of essays suggesting how to make the Vale easier to defend against the shadowy forces of the Harrower. It is addressed to Nevaehlen’s Greenblades along with any other allies they enlisted in the Vale’s defence. It will compile as many ideas as I can personally recall being brought up throughout the various small discussions between the Vale’s defending forces. I sincerely hope it helps. And any feedback is appreciated. Countering the Chosen The successful defence of Nevaehlen hinges on many factors, with one of the most important being how well the Vale’s defenders can restrict the teleportation capabilities of the Harrower’s Chosen. To recap, based on information kindly provided by Anatoliy Ilya Silveira of Kaethul in the 'War on Ailmere' missive and Liriel Alhanavir of Nevaehlen in the recent moot on defence against the Harrower, the ‘Chosen’ are an elite group of warriors who can use dark shadow magic to teleport between shadows, replicate themselves as ‘shadow clones’, and even turn into shadows themselves. Their abilities make them exceptionally good infiltrators and saboteurs; they are likely to be deployed ahead of large-scale Thrall assaults, creating vulnerabilities in the defence that the more mundane main force can exploit to great effect. They are very, very dangerous opponents whose capabilities need to be specifically planned around. The Chosen can undermine the security of any fort or city with minimal effort. This is not particularly because of the rare metal weapons they wield, the heavy armour they wear, or their skill in combat; their most dangerous aspect by far is their ability to teleport between shadows and to other individuals branded with the Harrower’s Mark. Their teleportation capabilities might even surpass those of Aevos’ greatest Translocation mages as the Chosen can teleport great distances and might not even need a clear line of sight to their destinations in order to do so. Defenders must acknowledge that every square metre of unlit ground or rooftop permitted to exist is a potential teleportation gateway for the Chosen, and that the Harrower can exploit this in all sorts of creative ways. For example: A single Chosen infiltrator can appear in an obscure dark spot anywhere in the Vale, sneak into a strategically important area that is actually very well-lit, and let other Chosen teleport into that area en-masse using their Mark as a teleportation beacon (just as Descendants can translocate to bound soul pillars with their soulstones). Once in position, Chosen can then aid the rest of their legion by lowering ladders, opening gates, and undermining walls so much larger numbers of ordinary Thralls can flood into the city proper. They could also covertly sabotage the defence by burning food supplies, releasing pests, poisoning wells, spiking artillery equipment, starting fires, blowing up gunpowder caches, collapsing entire sections of the Vale by making sinkholes from the underground caverns and sewers, and so on. Though they have the equipment and skills to fight, they do not need to engage in combat at all in order to doom a defence; their most effective use would be paving the way for larger-scale assaults by the Harrower's main force of Thralls. The Chosens' potential to undermine the Vale’s defences (literally and figuratively) from the inside is virtually limitless. The defenders of the Vale must undertake extensive preparations to restrict the Chosens’ ability to teleport. If they fail to adequately prepare for this security risk, it doesn’t matter how strongly Nevaehlen’s walls are built up, how wide a moat its people dig, or how many cannons they can bring to bear; the Chosen can render even the strongest and most elaborate fortifications meaningless if they are permitted free reign to teleport whereever they please. The Chosens’ teleportation capabilities probably can not be completely nullified, but they can at least be mitigated to manageable levels. From various discussions about the defence of the Vale, the three most practical ideas for preventative measures that have emerged thus far appear to be as follows: Dividing the Vale into multiple fortified holdout positions or defensive zones, Lighting up the Vale so the Chosen have fewer places to teleport to, and Introducing mandatory checks for the Harrower’s Mark on everyone entering the Vale. If at least these three ideas are put into practice, even if in small ways on the individual level, it will be a lot harder for the Chosen to infiltrate Nevaehlen and totally undermine its security, and the Vale will be a lot safer for it. The peace of mind everyone will get from not having to worry too much about getting stabbed in the back at any given moment should be well worth the effort. Defensive Zones To avoid spreading Nevaehlen’s forces and resources too thin, Cathan proposed pulling out of areas the Vale likely lacks the time, resources, and manpower to thoroughly light up and defend. These areas included most of the isle beyond Nevaehlen’s walls, the farmlands, and the northern walls and northeastern quadrant of the Vale. By shrinking the area defenders have to protect, the Vale’s resources may be concentrated more densely on just the important areas where the denizens of the Vale live, work, and socialise. These areas would thus become much safer from the threat of Chosen infiltrators. To further mitigate the threat of Chosen infiltrators, Cathan also proposed dividing the Vale’s city sectors into fortified and self-reliant sections or ‘forts’. This way, if the Chosen suddenly appear in one part of the Vale and overwhelm the defenders responding to the breach, the rest of Vale won’t immediately follow because then the Chosens’ advance would be blocked by even more fortifications. This would also give defenders the freedom to wrestle for control of the Vale block by block rather than as one big zone all at once. The above map divides Nevaehlen into multiple defensible zones based on their importance and how easily their local urban and natural terrain features can be integrated and built upon for fortification. The map is meant to help coordinate the construction of defences, but this essay will focus on how it specifically pertains to mitigating the threat of Chosen. The zones marked in Red are the most critical areas to defend. They should be defenders’ first and foremost priorities for fortification and lighting resources. They include: 1) The Campitol district. This will be Nevaehlen’s main defensive line against any attacks coming from the West and South. It will also be the likely location of the defenders’ main military headquarters and artillery batteries. It will likely be hit the hardest by the brunt of the Harrowers' forces. It is crucial to protect this zone because it prevents the Harrower from threatening the interior of the city with his main force. 2) Nevaehlen's Town Square. This is the social and economic hub of Nevaehlen, where its denizens congregate most of the time — essentially, it is the Vale’s beating heart. It would be a devastating blow to the defenders’ morale if their main place to gather and relax was occupied and razed by the Harrower. Therefore, this zone must also get a high priority for fortification. The zones marked in Orange are important buffer zones that, if even lightly fortified and garrisoned, limit the Harrower’s ability to directly threaten Nevaehlen's Campitol district and Town Square. The main Orange zones (which are designated on the map as ‘Forts’) includes groupings of houses that the Vale’s builders should easily be able to convert into defensible self-contained ‘forts’. Some ruined walls and floors would be repaired. Ground-floor windows that would grant attackers an easy means of entry into the fort would be barricaded. Barricades and roadblocks would be set up on the streets. Roof-level walkways and platforms would give archers a safe means to shoot directly down at street-level enemies. Each fort would also be given their own distinct alarm bell so that the rest of the Vale can know when they come under attack. Fortifying the residential districts should give their residents a fighting chance to defend their homes should Chosen appear nearby. The people living in here should be especially invested in lighting up their homes and the streets just outside their doors, as it would prevent Chosen from simply teleporting inside and slitting their throats in their sleep. Other orange zones includes a series of moats, trenches, and other defensive outworks beyond the Western and Southern walls of the Campitol district. It is expected that the outworks would fall early on (as they are mainly meant to delay enemy forces from reaching the Vale’s main walls), so only just enough lighting resources should be invested to prevent Chosen from just completely taking over the outworks and planting explosives at the base of the walls within the first few minutes of an assault. A few Orange zones not included on the map would be the sewers and caverns running just underneath Nevaehlen. It is important that these areas, or at least the entrances to them, are well-lit and constantly monitored so that Chosen infiltrators can not easily bring down the Vale from beneath its defenders’ feet. The zones marked in Yellow are places that can not be so easily converted into self-contained forts but are still worth lighting up with lanterns, torches, bonfires, braziers, bioluminescent plants, luminosity pots and so on. It would greatly help the defence if Chosen are unable to just casually teleport into these areas. These areas include: 1) The Intersection(s) at the centre of the Vale connecting the Campitol, Town Square, and the various Forts together. This place is strategically important as it lets the defenders of the Vale easily move around to wherever they need to go at street level. If it is occupied and blocked off by Chosen infiltrators, they can splits up and isolate the city’s defenders and create a staging area from which the Harrower’s forces can threaten nearly every part of the Vale at the once. 2) The (Western) Bridgehead. It is important to light this area up to deny Chosen infiltrators a potential stepping stone for teleportation jumps into the Town Centre. To put this idea into practice, even without the effort of extensive fortification work: the residents of each residential district should at least get organised and form a ‘neighbourhood watch’ of sorts. Just as many cities, armies, and wilderness rangers maintain fire lookouts to prevent fires from destroying large areas, all denizens of the Vale should act as watchmen, stay vigilant for signs of Chosen activity, and report anything that seems out of the ordinary. The battle is not just being fought at the ramparts, but also in and around their own homes. ((OOC: In case Nevaehlen's builders RPly set up these fortifications but don't have the time to actually place them down on the map before the start of an event involving one, the ST can still try to represent them. I would recommend containing events within individual defensive zones and, should players lose control of one, give players the chance to retake them in future events. If the front lines can change gradually to reflect back-and-forth battles over city blocks, then Nevaehlen's players can develop a more natural sense of progression as the event line goes on.)) Lighting It is important that the Vale, or at least the sectors most crucial to its defence, is thoroughly well-lit. Upgrading its lighting infrastructure by placing down torches, lanterns, braziers, luminescent plants, luminosity lanterns, and faery fire everywhere practical would heavily limit where Chosen can appear and wreak havoc. The less places they can appear from, the easier their movements are to anticipate, the more easily they can be planned around and countered. The Vale is a massive place so it’s practically impossible to light up literally every square metre. Instead, defenders should strategically position their limited lighting resources in important locations. For example: around the Campitol and Town Square districts, along high-traffic pathways, and around other places the people of the Vale really, really do not want Chosen to suddenly surprise-attack them from. If there are enough lighting resources, the sewer and cavern systems beneath the Vale should also be thoroughly lit up to prevent the Harrower from exploiting them. Defenders must be acutely aware of the locations of any left-over dark spots, and make plans that let them effectively respond to and contain any Chosen infiltrators that teleport to them. In lighting up the Vale, it is recommended to make liberal use of faery fire; luminosity potions or lanterns; bardmancer amphitheatres; and other magical, holy, and deific light sources. This is because the Harrower can summon a fog of darkness capable of ‘snuffing out mundane light sources to dim flickers of flame’. He already did this to much of Aevos's northern tundra, and at some point he might try to do the same to other places his forces attack. Normal means of lighting, like conventional torches and oil lanterns, would be rendered impotent. By making heavy use of non-mundane light sources, a fog of darkness, with all the potential teleportation locations it creates for Chosen, would not be as dangerous to the city’s security. It should also be acknowledged that there are some areas that can not be lit. An example would be the Starlily in the cavern on the southeastern corner of the Vale, which thrives in darkness. To protect the Starlily without compromising the security of the Vale, it would be recommended to enclose the Starlily in a dark box with breathing holes on the top side. The box should be big enough to let the plant live without giving space for Chosen to teleport into. The surrounding area outside the box can then be lit up to safe standards. With this, the Starlily can survive without the whole cave becoming a massive security vulnerability. Meanwhile, for Nevaehlen denizens who do not have the building permits or construction skills to add new lighting installations around the Vale, they can at least stockpile and carry around luminosity potions or produce faery fire lanterns wherever they go. They can also help maintain light sources by patrolling around, refuelling them, and ensuring they don’t flicker out. The defence of the Vale is one big team effort, and this is one simple way anyone can take part in. The more manpower Nevaehlen's fighters can dedicate to holding off the hordes of Thralls battering against its walls, rather than constantly watching or patrolling areas Chosen may or may not appear in the end, the better. Maintaining good lighting infrastructure for Nevaehlen is just as important as maintaining its walls. Manipulation and exploitation of shadow is crucial to the Harrower's military strategy, and ensuring there is as few possible shadows for him to weaponise will do a lot towards levelling the playing field. ((OOC: If a creeper can feasibly spawn on a block, so can a Chosen. If we do have to mechanically light up the Vale like we’re playing Minecraft Survival, anywhere we really, really don’t want Chosen to suddenly show up should be illuminated to at least light level 8. However, it's not guaranteed that we can organise mechanically lighting up most of the Vale before the next event is scheduled. While we could procure the necessary amounts of lighting items and faery fire for it, putting all of that onto the RP map and doing a good job of it could take A LOT of time out of people’s schedules. And then there is the issue of handing out build perms to new volunteers and the hurdle of coordinating the construction of lighting infrastructure OOC. Alternatively, the ST can just use this post as a reason to not have the Harrower’s Chosen pull a ‘*teleports behind you* "nothing personnel kid"’ on the Vale’s defenders during the event line while the Vale's lighting infrastructure is still intact. At least this would give STs a good excuse to put more spotlight on mundane Thralls and their siege tactics.)) Mandatory Mark Checks Greenblades must inspect everyone who enters the Vale for the Harrower’s Mark as a matter of routine. According to the missive ‘The War on Ailmere’ by Silveira, the Mark is a curse that essentially turns its victims into spies for the Harrower, teleportation gateways for Chosen, and potential saboteurs. Allowing even just one person with the Mark inside the Vale is a massive security vulnerability that lets the Harrower casually bypass every other defensive measure the Vale may set up. It is imperative that a small station be built after the front gate where gate guards can thoroughly inspect people for the Mark before allowing them into the city proper. The Mark used to be identified by a marking on a person’s back depicting an open palm with an eye in the centre, but more recent Marks are invisible to the naked eye and can only be detected through Arcana Flow goggles as a ‘constant, ominous aura that clings under [a Marked individual’s] clothing.’ This necessitates more thorough vetting than just eyeballing a prospective entrant from the usual guard window at the gate. This additional layer of entrant processing can simply be called the ‘Mark Inspection Station’. It should at least have 1) three processing rooms or tents where guards can conduct inspections in private and 2) a surrounding wall with a gate that lets guards immediately seal off the Mark Inspection Station area should a Marked individual actually show up and Chosen teleport inside. Inside the processing rooms, guards should ask prospective entrants to remove any clothing items or armour pieces that could be concealing a Mark. Many people will not be comfortable with the idea of being vetted by the opposite gender. With this in mind, there should be two guards – one male and one female – available to conduct inspections. There should also be at least three processing rooms: one exclusively for men, one exclusively for women, and another gender-neutral room for people who identify as neither and also to increase the station’s processing capacity. A Mark Inspection Station would be just as important for the Vale’s defence as any of its walls. The Greenblades should not neglect constructing and running one if they don’t want the Harrower’s elites teleporting in and decapitating them from behind. ((OOC: For the sake of conserving time and effort, and to keep safely in line with LOTC’s rules on Prohibited Roleplay (as effective Mark inspections may realistically involve strip searching people), nobody should have to actually go through the time-consuming process of fully RPing out strip searches on every single person who wants to enter the city for a bit. It should be sufficient for the gate guard to stay at the usual window at the gate, post one short emote basically saying they would thoroughly inspect the entering person at the Mark Inspection Station with Arcana Flow goggles, get the player’s OOC assurance that they don’t have the Mark, and then let them into the city as normal. The ST could also represent this by having Marked NPCs be unable enter the city proper via the front gate without getting stopped by the guards, so the Harrower’s forces would probably have to consider alternative ways to infiltrate the Vale where their agents would have a higher chance of success.)) Conclusion The Chosen pose a grave threat to the security of the Vale, but at the very least they are a threat that can be mitigated. And unlike constructing and manning fortifications, countering the Chosen is something anyone can easily get involved in. No engineering degree, fancy magics, or flashy swordsmanship required. For the average civilian, this could be as easy as staying vigilant of one’s surroundings, volunteering to patrol the streets, relighting lanterns when they start to dim and flicker out, and ringing alarm bells when the enemy is spotted. Those with the mina or technical know-how can also procure luminosity potions and produce faery fire. And guards can be a bit more thorough in their vetting of strangers who enter through the front gate. With at least some basic idea of what the Chosen can do, people can probably think of countless other ways to deal with the threat of infiltrators. Doing these things makes it a much, much harder and riskier task for Chosen to infiltrate the Vale and undermine its defence from the inside. If Nevaehlen's streets are at least monitored, patrolled, and well-lit enough, the Harrower may just decide that infiltration via teleport jump is too dangerous and failure-prone an operation to send some of his most valuable assets on. Each Chosen, given their elite capabilities, is probably the product of thousands of man-hours of indoctrination, training, education, and combat experience. The equipment they use is made of rare and valuable materials. And there are probably not too many of them to throw around to begin with. The loss of even one Chosen would be a terrible blow to the Harrower's forces. So the Harrower, as an entity who is arguably capable of intelligent and rational thought, would probably be far more reserved in putting his Chosen at risk than he would be with his rank-and-file cannon fodder Thralls. If the people of the Vale can work together on measures that will make the Harrower think twice about deploying Chosen on infiltration missions, the Vale can be assured a level of security far surpassing that bestowed by any wall or cannon. None of the ideas compiled in this essay — which basically boil down to 'limit the areas the Chosen can feasibly teleport into and strike ' — is some genius game-changing revelation. Everyone in Nevaehlen has an important role to play in protecting their home. Everyone can contribute. Everyone matters.

• Remove CRP Lock inside settlements but keep it in the wilderness • Extend CRP Lock timer in the wilderness to 30 minutes • Remove post-Lock invisibility Towns and cities actually become the places of relative safety they are meant to be. Guards are no longer pointless and actually get a decent chance to react to threats as they realistically should. People will feel safer logging on and actually sticking around to RP, especially in non-peak hours, increasing overall RP and server activity. People's IRL time and commitments get more respect. RP spaces are still usable when fights happen. Nobody has to deal with the jarring situation of watching their buddies get jumped right in the middle of the town square in broad daylight and pretending to not notice or be bothered by it at all. The RP and commerce block of cities closing their gates is much less of an annoyance. CRP can still happen. Bandits and raiders just need to consider that there are obvious risks to attacking people in what are supposed to be populated and defended areas. Lessening the CRP Lock is a compromise that benefits and is supported by the majority of players. And its benefits way, way outweigh any drawbacks. This should not be that hard of a decision.