Crusades

Should the PCs ever opt to venture into the crusades, they will find themselves in the middle of what is essentially a constant version of every war movie you have ever watched. It is D-Day, Waterloo, every battle, every war, all compressed into a microcosm of a meat grinder that has and continues to break the hearts of thousands.

Remember that about a third of the Force sent by the Sibolan Empire is composed of Conscripts. Over half of each force is expected to die when they go off to fight in the Crusades, and of the half that returns, most will have missing limbs or horrible disfigurement.

Lemuria, each season (mid-spring through early Autumn) will field a force of approximately 280,000 troops. This is a full Army.

They will be built around Squads of six, one of which is a Goblin Corporal. They will be armed and armored with the standard loadout. There is a 50% chance that a squad will have one Orc with them, always chained until released.

Six Squads make a Platoon, led by a Goblin Sergeant.

Six Platoons make a Company, led by a Hobgoblin. One Platoon out of every six will be Redcaps. That is 216 members to a Company.

Six Companies is a Regiment. That is 30 Platoons of Goblins, 6 Platoons of Redcaps. Regiments serve under Goblin Captains.

Six Regiments is a Battalion. Battalions are led by Goblin Major.

Six Battalions is a Division. Divisions are led by Goblin Lord.

Six Divisions is an Army. That is 279,936 troops. A Goblin General leads the Army, or a Fascian Lord does. As there are only 36 Fascian Lords, they tend to not appear very often unless they have some horrific plan.

Sibola will field five armies or as close to it as they can get (between 50,000 and 78,125 soldiers). This is every year and is deeply unpopular. They will follow the standard format of Imperial military forces, and they will do something that the Lemurian forces do not do, which is bring war machines with them. This helps a small amount to mitigate the 3:1, 4:1, or 5:1 ratio that is what they face when they encounter Lemuria.

These battles are fought on Difficult Terrain that becomes Unstable Terrain by about mid-day, and the battles typically last around six hours along well marked lines, with two hours for each side to police their wounded.

Lemurians do not travel with food. They will eat their dead and the dead of the Sibolan army, and prefer Sibolan, so they will also steal corpses.

Both sides will use magic, arrows, spears, and other missiles from behind the furthest ranks, and will attempt to use cavalry whenever possible. The goal is always to cause the maximum possible death and damage to the opposing force, while still accomplishing the general objective.

The Objectives are always to defend or to take a Keep, which is usually a small stone fortress on higher ground, with a single gate and thick walls around a Complex that includes a barracks, a Kitchen, an Officer’s Quarters, and assorted essential facilities (including a wellhouse). The battles outside Keeps are generally held within 1000 feet of the walls.

It is an unremittingly horrible experience. Drive this home to players. There is no honor, no glory, no hope, no noble striving here. Really beef up the carnage aspect: the smell of blood and stench of loosened bowels, the sight of crushed bodies and severed limbs, the open vacant eyes.

If they choose to wade in, the party will face one squad per party member each encounter. Adventurers are seen by Lemurian Commanders as imminent threats, and unpredictable problems, and so will focus a force on them. Sibolan Commanders will place their troops behind Adventurers.

This will leave each PC facing a minimum of 3 foes at a time, and a maximum of 5 foes at a time. If you use a grid system, then there are corner attackers as well as directly ahead and directly beside foes. The Lemurians will keep sending units until they have lost a full company, at which point they will retreat.

For every 10 rounds, PC’s will experience 1 point of fatigue. Every two hours, fresh troops will circle in and give them an opportunity for a short rest. They can take a long rest each night, and start fresh in the morning,

Use the full Cleaving rules and other combat effects as you go, rolling each encounter in a non-stop way. Lemurians will seek to take out Mages – either through a flanking effort with archers and their own mages, or through direct assaults.

War of this sort is a grind. It doesn’t let up. The actions of the PCs, if they are heroic (they cleave through three foes, they leap over the heads of the enemy to take down the squad leader, they hurl a mighty fireball that takes a chunk out of the oncoming line), and each time they score a Critical Hit, will spur morale of the troops around them. The entire line of the Sibolan side will move forward six feet. This is the Line Surges.

Each time they take significant damage (more than 10% of their total hit points in a single attack) or have a Fumble, the entire Sibolan line will move back six feet. This is the Line Wavers.

In this way, the PCs become the drivers of the battle. Don’t explain it to them, though. Just say things at the end of each round like “the line moves back, the line moves up, the line doesn’t move”.

At the end of each round, roll a d% for the Lemurians and a d30 for the Sibolans. That is the number of losses that round for each side, in addition to any the PC’s kill or suffer.

If the Lemurians drop below 20% of their troops, they will flee. If the Sibolans lose more than 10% of their troops, they will retreat one mile.

Combat continues until the day ends (usually midafternoon), one side is overrun, one side surrenders, one side flees, or the objective is attained. Once Players are in the war, they cannot disengage except at the end of a day or the start of a day.

If they do leave after being involved, the objective will fail and the unit they were with will be slaughtered as a result of failure of morale – unless they take the time to heal all the wounds and injuries of the unit and provide something to keep morale high.