Quote Originally Posted by Storm Bringer View Post
if the land is snow-blown tundra, then yes, logistics and food supply (and also liquid water, if its permanently cold) are major bottlenecks on expansion into the area. however, making and holding a fort a days ride out from the Wall isn't going to be a massive issue for a civilisation that built a Game of Thrones style border wall. the location of the fort might be determined by the fact it needs to be at or very close to a water source (like a river, or spring)


the point about logistics is that their comes a point where your oxen are eating their own carry weight in fodder to move that stone the distance required (ie, the oxen needs to devote all its cargo hauling space to fodder to travel that far). A single days ride isn't that point, but depending on how far back form the Wall the fodder is coming form, you might not have that much ability to "project" forward of the wall because most of your logistical effort is being spent bringing supplies TO the wall.

looking at a real, historical example, namely Hadrian's Wall (the one that inspired the Game of Thrones Wall), its important to understand how that worked, and that it wasn't the first line of defence that the romans never crossed. they had a mix of obsovation towers and cavalry patrols ranging out in front of it to keep an eye on the land for trouble, and they had extensive trade and diplomatic links with the Pictish tribes in southern Scotland, which often gave them advanced warning of major raids. minor raids of a dozen or two people could often get over the wall (its difficult to patrol a wall 73 miles long well enough that they couldn't), but it was very difficult for them to take much worth stealing and get back over unopposed (most raiders would be after portable wealth, and farm animals were a favourite. and their is no way your going to convince a cow to climb a wall)




argueably, what the Players are going to want in a home base is something like a small valley with very steep, unclimbable cliffs on both sides, with one way in at the bottom and a way out at the top onto the higher area. a small stream runs though it, which gives you a water supply. the enemy can only really attack you form two sides, and if their isn't another path up to the highland he might have only one path, so you don't have to fortify anywhere near as much. hell, it might even be preferable to not fortify, but rely on stealth to hide you form any scouts. you don't build anything fancy, nothing that you can't replace easily. then, if your found, you bug out and find a new site and repeat.
Thanks. I'll have to look at my map of the area at a higher resolution and figure out a good place that's already naturally fortified to some degree. I'd figure that they'd have very light scouts already out in the country relying on stealth (or familiars flying over with the wizards looking through their eyes or something), so they'd know the general layout within a short distance of the Wall.

The actual fortification part is going to be a minimal part of the overall campaign--just a home base and a place for there to be some complications (maybe having to help defend it, etc). The party will spend most of their time out looking for other things/sifting through ruins/talking to non-hostile tribes. Their personal, primary goal will be to find out why the Frost has been attacking. Because no one knows. They just attacked out of nowhere 90 years ago, seemingly bent on the total destruction of this nation. There seem to be "allied" tribes of goblins in the area who only fight when they're coerced--these might be able to be swayed or at least bribed into giving information; there is also the ruins of the original capital not too far away.