Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXVII

[Kiero]

Anyone know anything about pre-modern (ideally about the Silk Road era, but with a wide temporal window either way) central Asian demographics? Specifically the more nomadic peoples of the mountain regions (modern day Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and north eastern Afganistan primarily)? I'm not looking at the mongolian tribes particularly.

I'd like to know how settled they were and how big the smallest unit (villages?) averaged. Even approximate numbers would be nice. Any other random cultural facts would also be wonderful

I'm using those as an initial starting point for my goliath/giant (same race, just magically changed at the individual level) culture and want to ballpark some numbers and get some inspiration.

Pre-modern when? There were successive waves of horse nomads moving westwards through the Altai and into the region (Tocharians, Asana, Alans, Turans, Yuezi, Xiongnu, etc) over the course of centuries in antiquity, and I don't think it stopped after the Roman era, either.

Afghanistan was heavily settled for a period and regularly refilled with Hellenised Iranian colonists from the Seleukids, in what eventually became Baktria. That might be a good place to start for inspiration. Ai-Knanoum was the one of the major centres of Hellenism in the region.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Pre-modern when? There were successive waves of horse nomads moving westwards through the Altai and into the region (Tocharians, Asana, Alans, Turans, Yuezi, Xiongnu, etc) over the course of centuries in antiquity, and I don't think it stopped after the Roman era, either.

Afghanistan was heavily settled for a period and regularly refilled with Hellenised Iranian colonists from the Seleukids, in what eventually became Baktria. That might be a good place to start for inspiration. Ai-Knanoum was the one of the major centres of Hellenism in the region.

I'm looking more at the semi (or fully) nomadic peoples. So less "heavily settled" and more wandering. The exact time period is less important than the feel, although before the era of gunpowder but (likely) after the classical/roman era.

[Kiero]

I'm looking more at the semi (or fully) nomadic peoples. So less "heavily settled" and more wandering. The exact time period is less important than the feel, although before the era of gunpowder but (likely) after the classical/roman era.

There was a near-constant conveyor belt of nomads moving west under pressure from other nomads to their east throughout the period. Those nomads settled eventually, becoming the next set of settled/semi-settled people resisting the new nomads. The Persians were originally horse-lords, as were the Parthians (who later became the Sassanids).

Part of that is because you can't actually settle horse-herds on agricultural land. Said horses need pasture, as in big stretches of grassland, and grains aren't a substitute. So even successful conquerors either became settled, or moved on returning to the nomadic lifestyle.

[The Jack]

How quack was pre-modern medicine actually? I realise a lot of people got some dumb ideas from a greek who'd never looked at a human body, but some of the stuff (blood letting, mercury use) seems like such frequently disastrous practices but they were practiced for thousands of years so they must have worked.

[Martin Greywolf]

Central Asia

Since the original question was about mongols specifically, I can recommend Secret history of Mongols - it's a relatively light reading and written by mongols themselves.

Other than that, I'm not comfortable with making any statements that relate to actual central Eurasia, there simply isn't enough research done into it - we thought they had little technology, but apparently, some tribes were good enough at metalworking to invent sabres.

How quack was pre-modern medicine actually? I realise a lot of people got some dumb ideas from a greek who'd never looked at a human body, but some of the stuff (blood letting, mercury use) seems like such frequently disastrous practices but they were practiced for thousands of years so they must have worked.

You have several fallacies in that question, and misinformation. To start with, quack medicine is a derogatory term and has no use if you are looking for answers. Just because something is used by people for a long period of time doesn't mean it works (see: prayers, sacrifices etc). Dumb ideas from a greek who never saw a human body is just straight up myth. And lastly, pre-*modern medicine is a vast topic including China, Japan, Persia, sub-Saharan Africa, pre-Colombian Americas and so on.

So, I'll focus on medieval Europe.

The main authority for the period was Avicenna, at least in scholarly circles, but it would be a mistake to assume that was it. Medieval healing included not just what people at the time called medicine (anatomy, alchemy, astrology), but also witchcraft (herbal remedies, spells) and religion (incense, fasting, prayer). Some of it was definitely superstition, and a lot of it didn't work.

The main thing you need to understand is that people weren't stupid, they just didn't have enough iunformation and so did the best they could. Let's take bloodletting as an example. By itself, it won't help in most cases and is downrgiht dangerous, what it will do though is reduce the symptoms. Add to that that some people recover after symptoms are reduced and some don't, and suddenly bloodletting in times prescribed by astrology starts to make a lot of sense.

The medical theories of the time are reasonably easy to research, and once you see how they thought things worked, many practices become a lot more reasonable - as do the punishments to witches, after all the guy over there just added a herb to your soup and you almost died - yup, many a witchcraft trial is in reality a poisioning trial. Again, no one knew about what chemical compounds in herbs do and how exactly.

There's also the fact that sometimes, the actual procedure was not helping, but some of the aftercare took the problem away, like adjusting the eating habits. And let's not forget that placebo effect is actually a thing.

For a more thorough overview, see here for a medieval medical text commented on by a doctor.

As a last but not least note, the "never lookad at the human body" part does have its place when it comes to women's medicine. There are very few texts, scholars mostly shied away from it and it seems most of it was taken care of by the "witches", or rather women who kept either oral tradition or written recepies of remedies and procedures for things like childbirth and so forth. If you ever looked into Elizabeth Bathory, you probably found accusations of her having a tome of poisonous herbs - she did, there were also healing herbs in it, and we also know that practically every other noblewoman and quite a lot of non-noblewomen had similar books.

[Kiero]

Central Asia

Since the original question was about mongols specifically, I can recommend Secret history of Mongols - it's a relatively light reading and written by mongols themselves.

No it wasn't:

Anyone know anything about pre-modern (ideally about the Silk Road era, but with a wide temporal window either way) central Asian demographics? Specifically the more nomadic peoples of the mountain regions (modern day Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and north eastern Afganistan primarily)? I'm not looking at the mongolian tribes particularly.

The original question quite specifically said it wasn't looking at the Mongols in particular.

Other than that, I'm not comfortable with making any statements that relate to actual central Eurasia, there simply isn't enough research done into it - we thought they had little technology, but apparently, some tribes were good enough at metalworking to invent sabres.

There's lots of research out there, just not a great deal of it in English. A lot of material relating to the steppe peoples is in Russian.

[Pauly]

How quack was pre-modern medicine actually? I realise a lot of people got some dumb ideas from a greek who'd never looked at a human body, but some of the stuff (blood letting, mercury use) seems like such frequently disastrous practices but they were practiced for thousands of years so they must have worked.

If you take scurvy for example, people prior to The Renaissance knew that fresh fruit and vegetables, and especially citric fruits would prevent scurvy. At that time they had no idea what caused scurvy, but knew how to cure it.

Then from the renaissance doctors needed to have a theory to explain the disease. Since the fresh fruit did not fit the theory they discarded the working cure and went to trying cures that were right by the theory.

So what we look at now as “dumb ideas” relate more to renaissance ideas. The medieval and Roman eras were more practical in their approach.

[HeadlessMermaid]

So I'm trying to locate some specific 16th century illustrations and I could use some help. In European Weapons and Armour: From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, Ewart Oakeshott talks about Landsknecht daggers, and mentions two sources. First he says:

"there are German drawings of the 1540s which show [the Landsknecht dagger] clearly, particularly the illustrations to Count Solms’s Treatise on War of 1545, illustrated by an artist who signs himself simply HD."

I looked this up and concluded that the illustrator is Hans Doering, and the treatise is Kriegsordnung by Reinhard zu Solms & Konrad von Boyneburg. I could be wrong. Even so, I'm not sure which illustration Oakeshott was talking about. Could it be this one?

Spoiler: Doering, Hans: Landsknecht captains, col. drawing from Solms etc.: Kriegsordnung, 1545

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Or not?? Note, Landsknecht daggers vary wildly, and Oakeshott has two drawings to give us a visual, a "transitional form of the rondel/landsknecht dagger" which looks a lot like this, c. 1550:

Spoiler

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and "a landsknecht dagger, dating c. 1585" which is more like this, c.1550-1600:

Spoiler

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Then he says:

"in Hans Burgkmair’s engravings for his Triumph of Maximilian at least three clearly-shown daggers are of this form, while most of the others are late kinds of rondel daggers. The Triumph was completed before – or at least work upon it ceased at – Maximilian’s death in January, 1519, so it does seem that the type must have been developing in the 1520s. The clearest is shown on Fol. 62, while on Fol. 61 and Fol. 59 are daggers which have the very distinctive downturned guards typical of the landsknecht dagger, and on Fol. 110 is one which has typical conical grip and pommel-cap as well as the trilobate guard. A curious thing about these engravings is that among the many landsknecht shown, only two wear daggers at all – rondel daggers at that. All the other daggers, mostly daggers, mostly rondels, and one ballock knife, are worn by knightly figures."

I tried and failed to find these engravings online. I did find images from the Triumph of Maximilian, but not particularly high-res (or in order...), and the closest I found to a Landsknecht dagger of any sort was this picture:

Spoiler

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which doesn't come with a useful caption, plus the dagger is not worn by a knight.

So I've reached the limits of my search-fu, and if anyone can help me locate the specific illustrations/engravings that Oakeshott had in mind, I'd be very very grateful. :)

[rrgg]

Here's the Wikimedia common page for the triumphal procession, which might help, particularly the two links at the top: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/C...f_Maximilian_I

But yeah, I've noticed that early 1500s landsknechts seem to usually be depicted without any visible dagger at all. For instance in this illustration by Johann John Wick of a Swiss soldier dueling a landsknecht the Switzer has both a longsword and a swiss dagger while the landsknecht seems to only have his katzbalger: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MeiXDCw63...ck%2B1564b.jpg

You might also try looking up the illustrations from Paul Dolstein's diary as well as those from Der Weisskunig, another book made for maximilian.

[gkathellar]

Historical medicine (as opposed to traditional, more on that in a moment) could be surprisingly complex. Willow-bark has been used to produce a rudimentary form of aspirin for at least 2,400 years. Germ theory may not have been accepted until fairly recently, but as an idea it dates back as early as Thucydides. Ayurvedic practice included surgical techniques, including a remarkable cataract surgery in which sterilization was achieved using hot butter, alongside herbalism, massage, and a great deal more. While the Greeks did not dissect corpses, and so had limited knowledge of anatomy (IIRC they believed the brain was a mucus-secreting organ), the Hippocratic school in particular pioneered crude but effective techniques for chest surgery (such as draining fluid), still forms the basis of a lot of modern proctology, and arguably provides the intellectual groundwork for modern medicine: professionalism, copious note-taking, observation and categorization of symptoms, and the use of aggregate case histories to construct theories of prognosis.

This was, however, scattershot: every culture had their own traditions, and frequently a few of those traditions worked pretty well, a few of them worked pretty badly, and a few met modest goals like symptom reduction. Tt can be hard to tell what was what. This is further complicated by the thorough integration of magical and religious ideas not just into the body of procedures, but into the epistemic basis for medicinal systems. Some traditions of exorcism, for instance, can be effective in treating depression and other mental illness, which tempts us to conceptualize them as a blend of therapy, quasi-hypnotic suggestion, and culturally-approved placebo - but if you ask the exorcist why he smears canola oil of the patient's forehead, the only answer you're going to get is, "it helps get rid of the witch." Even so, the exorcist is probably not a quack or a snake-oil salesmen, but rather the trained practitioner of a system that is not well-founded but did manage to find some useful techniques.

Given this, I think it's important to think of historical medicine as the antecedent to what we have today, rather than something that was superseded or became so-called "traditional" medicine. Historical doctors found techniques that worked, and every once in a while they even understood why. They were not what we think of as "alternative medicine" practitioners today: homeopaths, or supplement dealers, or "traditional medicine" practitioners trying to sell you manta ray gill rakers in your soup as a cure for cancer. Rather, they were pharmacists, physical therapists, nutritionists, surgeons, and clinicians with modest means, frequently modest expectations, and a lot of bad information.

As a last but not least note, the "never lookad at the human body" part does have its place when it comes to women's medicine. There are very few texts, scholars mostly shied away from it

It's still a lot truer than most people realize. Drug testing in particular tends to neglect the possibility of divergent in effects in male and female subjects, which is actually pretty weird.

[DerKommissar]

I‘m talking a bit out of my proktos, as I have no clue about medival medicine, but it might be worth to have a look at Hildegard von Bingen (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen). At the very least in alternative medicinical practice circles she is quite hyped in germany and also in more ‚school medicincal‘ contexts they often go like „ah we invented that now, but its already mentioned at Hildegard von Bingens writings“.
Havent read her, might be worth a shot though...

[Brother Oni]

It's still a lot truer than most people realize. Drug testing in particular tends to neglect the possibility of divergent in effects in male and female subjects, which is actually pretty weird.

Going off topic for a moment, it depends on the drug and which stage of clinical trial it's at.

Phase 1 clinical trials are almost always done on male volunteers (First in Man trials are only done on men) due to the unknown long term effects of a brand new drug. If it has reproductive/genotoxic effects, then it's not as detrimental to men as it is women - men can *cough* discard affected reproductive fluids, while women can't do the same for their eggs.

On Phase 2 and later trials where patients are involved (rather than the healthy volunteers used in Phase 1), simple recruitment can be an issue - if no female patients want to join (or their doctors don't refer them to) your clinical trial, then you can't test your new drug on them.

While I agree that some trials and big pharma practices are very sketchy, oddities in drug testing data can be sometimes not be malicious or intentionally deceitful.

[snowblizz]

I‘m talking a bit out of my proktos, as I have no clue about medival medicine, but it might be worth to have a look at Hildegard von Bingen (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen). At the very least in alternative medicinical practice circles she is quite hyped in germany and also in more ‚school medicincal‘ contexts they often go like „ah we invented that now, but its already mentioned at Hildegard von Bingens writings“.
Havent read her, might be worth a shot though...

Hildegard von Bingen was a 12th century mystic. She had "visions" and stuff. She may have influenced something, but if it is actual medicine it's going to be more accidental and a result of a medical student lsitening to her hymns and getting an idea.

In my not so humble opinion.

The fact that alternative medicine is hyping her should be a clear warning of bogus sign.

[Vinyadan]

About medicine in the Middle Ages, there is a little story about experiments being made. At a university, a teacher had read to his students about how eating aubergines for nine days straight would turn you insane, and was now giving an explanation of this phenomenon according to natural science. One of the students said that he didn't believe this to be true, and that he would test it on himself. Nine days of aubergines later, he presented himself to the teacher, and told him that he was still sane. He then turned his back to the teacher, bent over, raised his tunic, and mooned him to mock him. To which the teacher answered: "Looks like the theory was right", and he ordered a new gloss to be added to the book, explaining how the experiment had been performed.

Anyway, I think that we have a huge advantage compared to the Middle Ages, and that's statistics. Let's take chemotherapy. From many points of view, it looks insane. The treatment can kill you. It's counter-intuitive in its workings, and hits really hard. However, statistics tell us that it increases survival by 30% overall across patients.
Maybe all methods of old medicine were useful at least once, they were then added to literature, and were then performed out of authority, without the chance to compare the effects on large numbers.

Hildegard von Bingen wrote two works, "Causa et Cura" and "Physica", which are medical essays in their current form, but which have most likely been integrated with other material she didn't write. I have not read them myself, but they seem to be mystical works concerning revelations about medicine, but their medicine respects the standards of its time (humour theory, gem therapy...).

It's probably worth noting that there is a party that tries to "push" traditional medicine's efficiency into mainstream. Such things were seen when Tu Youyou got the Nobel prize for developing a malaria treatment based on ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine. However, while her results showed that the traditional stuff wasn't bonkers, it also showed its limits: traditional treatment of the ingredients (boiling them, if I recall correctly) actually made them less effective.

[hymer]

Maybe all methods of old medicine were useful at least once, they were then added to literature, and were then performed out of authority, without the chance to compare the effects on large numbers.

Let's also mention placebo effect, and people spontaneously getting better regardless (or even in spite) of some treatment.

Edit: That reminds me of an amusing and typically cynical quote from Dr. House, quoted from memory:

This is how medicine evolved. Sometimes patients get better on their own. If you don't give them an explanation, they won't pay you.

[gkathellar]

While I agree that some trials and big pharma practices are very sketchy, oddities in drug testing data can be sometimes not be malicious or intentionally deceitful.

I had no intention of implying malice - only neglect and disinterest.

[DerKommissar]

Hildegard von Bingen was a 12th century mystic. She had "visions" and stuff. She may have influenced something, but if it is actual medicine it's going to be more accidental and a result of a medical student lsitening to her hymns and getting an idea.

In my not so humble opinion.

The fact that alternative medicine is hyping her should be a clear warning of bogus sign.

Many great inventions have been accidents, but its important to document and learn from them. But I see where you are aiming at and of course there was lot of mumbo jumbo and ridiculous theories (from our perspective) going on. I just wouldnt go as far as discarding all as witch doctor chants - and if so: modern science has quite some similarities to that as well...

plus as already said upthread and as a recurring topic in this thread: it always depends on where, what, who, when, etc.

[SleepyShadow]

Hey all, I've got a tactics question related to a D&D game I'm currently playing in.

My character, an alchemist named Zujenia, has recently discovered she and her party have royally ticked off the regional vampire lord. Traditional vampire stuff, blah blah, nothing surprising here. "Any day now" the vampire is going to start attacking the village with his minions. I don't have full information on the attacking forces, but I think it's mostly stuff like ghouls and wolves, maybe with some human loyalists thrown in for good measure. The vampire in question is an egotistic jerk who thinks he's a lot smarter than he actually is. Hopefully that'll be of some advantage to us.

We're stuck in a small town with a lot of suspicious townsfolk (suspicious because plot, I guess ) with absurdly low morale. It's an isolated village, but there's plenty of natural resources around. Not exactly a trade route, so we mostly have to work with whatever is readily available (surrounded by a forest, a river nearby, and I think a small stone quarry not far off). The only place in town with walls around the perimeter is the church, and it only has three walls. The perimeter walls connect to the back of the church, making it less than ideal. Still, I think it's the best defensible place around, or at least the easiest to fortify.

My character has also been granted "working knowledge of tech up to and including modern day", and carte blanche to create whatever I can manufacture out of the materials available. According to my DM "We're in medieval Transylvania. I doubt you can make anything crazy." Zujenia has already started working on plans to manufacture ammonium nitrate.

TL;DR - I need a way to defend a town from what amounts to a better equipped, worse led force.

Thanks in advance!

[tyckspoon]

There's a number of incendiary and explosive materials that are fairly easy to make, once you know how, and they don't require specialized modern equipment to create (although it does help reduce the risk of accidentally exploding and/or incinerating your production site.) Have your labor force dig out trenches/moats to extend or reinforce your fortified area, then fill them with the closest equivalent to napalm you can convince your DM is practical. Mix up molotov cocktails to fling at things. Make primitive cannons for field artillery if time permits (best done with bronze, if available, but you can make 'em out of adequately large trees in a pinch.) Even if your DM doesn't buy into the napalm, moats or trench lines filled with something nasty (at a minimum, sharpened stakes in the bottom/at the top to make it harder and dangerous to climb across) are a time-honored field fortification.

[Mr Beer]

My character has also been granted "working knowledge of tech up to and including modern day", and carte blanche to create whatever I can manufacture out of the materials available. According to my DM "We're in medieval Transylvania. I doubt you can make anything crazy." Zujenia has already started working on plans to manufacture ammonium nitrate.

Gunpowder obviously. I doubt you will have time to make a lot of it but a crude cannon or a few IED-type devices would be useful - pack a small stout barrel with gunpowder, lined with large iron nails, detonate amongst the enemy.

Distilling anything you can ferment will yield ethanol, this can be used to make Molotovs, maybe a crude flamethrower? You can 'jelly' it into a sticky napalm-like substance with soap or maybe pitch.

The most important things are to try to rally the townfolk into mounting some kind of defence and creating fortifications. You absolutely need defences because you are not going to be able to make the kind of weapons required to mow down hordes of attackers. So anything that will slow them up, allow you to harass them with missiles and maybe channel them towards your IEDs will be critical.

If the townsfolk are super apathetic, maybe just bribe them to build palisades and dig ditches.

[Vinyadan]

Fordism, prefabs, and Borz guns?

[Aneurin]

We're stuck in a small town with a lot of suspicious townsfolk (suspicious because plot, I guess ) with absurdly low morale.

Are they suspicious of you, or are you suspicious of them? Because if they're not trustworthy this might be a really short siege. Try and do something about this whichever it is; make friends, build support and foster loyalty so they don't just agree to betray you to the vampire if it promises to leave them alone. Throw a party, rescue cats from trees - whatever it takes.


So, right. Defending. I don't really remember what a D&D vampire can do, or what sort of things they're associated with, so this isn't going to be tailored to known capabilities too well. Sorry.

You're going to want some kind of air defenses, because vampires and bats go together like water and ducks. Even if it can't use them offensively, they can scout for it. Put out a bounty on bats, and let the locals go nuts. If the vamp has some kind of nasty giant flying critters, then you can try and employ faux-barrage balloons that trail cables to foul up flight paths - though these won't work on little bats.

Do your own scouting, try to find out exactly what you're up against. It's hard to plan for an attack if you don't know what's coming.

Secure the water! Make sure the settlement's food and water can't be tampered with, otherwise this might be over before it begins.

Watch the river, in case the vampire tries to divert or dam it and flood the settlement.

Look into cheval de frise if you're expecting any kind of cavalry, or mindless creatures. Usefulness against wolves is... questionable. But they're mobile, so you can use them to close off streets after retreating.

Mines. If you can make gunpowder, you can make mines. Though you'll have to set them off manually because they'll be fused. If you can make enough of them, then it might be worth employing a collapsing defense - wait until your defenses are overrun, blow them up and retreat to the next line. This is going to be your friend if you're up against something that doesn't break and doesn't stop coming, like zombies - especially since morale is terrible. This may generate a little ill feeling towards you from the locals, since you're blowing up their homes and livelihoods.

Kill-boxes. This kinda goes with mines, really, but can be used with most anything. Fake a weak spot in the defenses and channel attackers into an area where they can be contained and/or destroyed.

Layered defenses. If morale's a problem, don't count on holding them in any one spot. If you need to pull back, pull back to somewhere you prepared earlier - the church sounds like a good final line of defense. And make sure everyone knows where they're going, and how to get there. Hopefully this will stop the panicking and running like lunatics.

Communication. Figure out how best to communicate, you don't want a surprise attack from a street you thought was secure because a message didn't get through about the defenders retreating. The faster and clearer the better. If nothing else, you should be able to whip up some sort of coloured flare.

[The Jack]

Why do these villagers live near such vampiric lords anyway?


What's your morality and do you enjoy playing against the gm?
I'd bug out, because I like to choose my battles. Perhaps, beforehand, I'd line the village with the flamables and explosives afforded, and set the village ablaze in a counterattack.
It sounds like the vampires own the village, so it's their loss, and the villages apparently aren't on your side (beware of spies! Gm's will contrive spies if you think of plans like this. I've literally had a guy I cannibalized possess my body to perfectly inform his allies of my too-good plan at the last moment that I'd built sessions around. In your case they'll probably go with birds or ghosts or something)

Vampires; divert the river.

What's your notice period, because having modern knowledge is going to be mostly useless without having an infrastructure.

[SleepyShadow]

There's a number of incendiary and explosive materials that are fairly easy to make, once you know how, and they don't require specialized modern equipment to create (although it does help reduce the risk of accidentally exploding and/or incinerating your production site.) Have your labor force dig out trenches/moats to extend or reinforce your fortified area, then fill them with the closest equivalent to napalm you can convince your DM is practical. Mix up molotov cocktails to fling at things. Make primitive cannons for field artillery if time permits (best done with bronze, if available, but you can make 'em out of adequately large trees in a pinch.) Even if your DM doesn't buy into the napalm, moats or trench lines filled with something nasty (at a minimum, sharpened stakes in the bottom/at the top to make it harder and dangerous to climb across) are a time-honored field fortification.

Trenches and spikes would definitely help. I can't believe I forgot about something so obvious Molotov cocktails are a good idea, too. Maybe I can modify a party member's crossbow to lauch them farther than they could throw them.

Gunpowder obviously. I doubt you will have time to make a lot of it but a crude cannon or a few IED-type devices would be useful - pack a small stout barrel with gunpowder, lined with large iron nails, detonate amongst the enemy.

Distilling anything you can ferment will yield ethanol, this can be used to make Molotovs, maybe a crude flamethrower? You can 'jelly' it into a sticky napalm-like substance with soap or maybe pitch.

The most important things are to try to rally the townfolk into mounting some kind of defence and creating fortifications. You absolutely need defences because you are not going to be able to make the kind of weapons required to mow down hordes of attackers. So anything that will slow them up, allow you to harass them with missiles and maybe channel them towards your IEDs will be critical.

If the townsfolk are super apathetic, maybe just bribe them to build palisades and dig ditches.

I've already asked the DM about black powder. Unfortunately, the only thing I was able to get was a single pound of charcoal. There is a tavern, though. Hopefully they grow their own grain so I'm not stuck with whatever trade goods happen to pass through town. Bribing the townsfolk might be difficult. They're a pretty apathetic lot.

Are they suspicious of you, or are you suspicious of them? Because if they're not trustworthy this might be a really short siege. Try and do something about this whichever it is; make friends, build support and foster loyalty so they don't just agree to betray you to the vampire if it promises to leave them alone. Throw a party, rescue cats from trees - whatever it takes.


So, right. Defending. I don't really remember what a D&D vampire can do, or what sort of things they're associated with, so this isn't going to be tailored to known capabilities too well. Sorry.

You're going to want some kind of air defenses, because vampires and bats go together like water and ducks. Even if it can't use them offensively, they can scout for it. Put out a bounty on bats, and let the locals go nuts. If the vamp has some kind of nasty giant flying critters, then you can try and employ faux-barrage balloons that trail cables to foul up flight paths - though these won't work on little bats.

Do your own scouting, try to find out exactly what you're up against. It's hard to plan for an attack if you don't know what's coming.

Secure the water! Make sure the settlement's food and water can't be tampered with, otherwise this might be over before it begins.

Watch the river, in case the vampire tries to divert or dam it and flood the settlement.

Look into cheval de frise if you're expecting any kind of cavalry, or mindless creatures. Usefulness against wolves is... questionable. But they're mobile, so you can use them to close off streets after retreating.

Mines. If you can make gunpowder, you can make mines. Though you'll have to set them off manually because they'll be fused. If you can make enough of them, then it might be worth employing a collapsing defense - wait until your defenses are overrun, blow them up and retreat to the next line. This is going to be your friend if you're up against something that doesn't break and doesn't stop coming, like zombies - especially since morale is terrible. This may generate a little ill feeling towards you from the locals, since you're blowing up their homes and livelihoods.

Kill-boxes. This kinda goes with mines, really, but can be used with most anything. Fake a weak spot in the defenses and channel attackers into an area where they can be contained and/or destroyed.

Layered defenses. If morale's a problem, don't count on holding them in any one spot. If you need to pull back, pull back to somewhere you prepared earlier - the church sounds like a good final line of defense. And make sure everyone knows where they're going, and how to get there. Hopefully this will stop the panicking and running like lunatics.

Communication. Figure out how best to communicate, you don't want a surprise attack from a street you thought was secure because a message didn't get through about the defenders retreating. The faster and clearer the better. If nothing else, you should be able to whip up some sort of coloured flare.

The townsfolk aren't suspicious of me (my character is a local to the area) but they are really suspicious of the rest of my party. The rest of the party is a bunch of very obvious trouble-making adventurers, and adventurers mean trouble for villagers. One of my party members slaughtered an entire farmhouse of civilians in frustration, so I've got that working against me, too. I'll do what I can to secure the villagers' loyalty, but it'll be tough.

As for the air defense, I'm hoping to get a bunch of fishing nets and string them up between buildings to give flying critters a hard time. If nothing else, maybe the nets would foul up bigger flyers long enough to force them to ground, making it easier for the party to fight them.

Scouting is the first thing I'm going to do next session.

The river is a critical strategic point. It's the only source of water for the town I'm aware of, and our friendly neighborhood vampires can't cross running water.

I really like your idea for cheval de frise. It should work great at stopping zombies

As for the flares, I'm hoping to get some fireworks from the travelling circus parked outside town. It's a little suspicious, but it's the best shot I've got.

Why do these villagers live near such vampiric lords anyway?


What's your morality and do you enjoy playing against the gm?
I'd bug out, because I like to choose my battles. Perhaps, beforehand, I'd line the village with the flamables and explosives afforded, and set the village ablaze in a counterattack.
It sounds like the vampires own the village, so it's their loss, and the villages apparently aren't on your side (beware of spies! Gm's will contrive spies if you think of plans like this. I've literally had a guy I cannibalized possess my body to perfectly inform his allies of my too-good plan at the last moment that I'd built sessions around. In your case they'll probably go with birds or ghosts or something)

Vampires; divert the river.

What's your notice period, because having modern knowledge is going to be mostly useless without having an infrastructure.

I'm guessing the villagers have no place else to go. My character's morality is quite high, and so she's very averse to harming the townsfolk in any way. It's her home, too.

As for whether or not I enjoy playing against the DM, normally I don't do that. However, last session alone saw the deaths of five characters between two players. None of them were mine, but I feel bad for my friends spending more time rolling up characters than actually playing. I'm willing to play against the DM in this case.

My notice period is just a vague "The attack could be sprung any day now", so at least until next session I have all the information on the enemy I can get.

[ExLibrisMortis]

our friendly neighborhood vampires can't cross running water

Can you run half a mile of lead piping around the village?

Failing that, divert part of the river upstream so that it can flow on both sides of the village, then funnel the diverted water back into the main flow to complete the enclosure. This is a ton of work, though, and there may not be a suitable path for the water to take. Theoretically, any area might be protected by constructing aquaducts, but that's even more work.

[Neknoh]

A few very important things you are going to want to do:

1. When you're digging your ditch full of spikes, make sure to stack all the dirt you dig up on the inside, forming a raised dirt wall with steep sides, this makes the ditch even harder to overcome and gives a good defensive position.

2. Divert the river, it does not have to be particularly deep or wide, but if you're digging a ditch with earth-walls and spikes around the perimeter of either the village or a smaller area in the central village, make sure to continue that ditch into the river so that the water will start coming through the ditch. It will dig itself deeper and widen outwards as the water moves whilst also creating a hard-to-overcome barrier for the vampires (yes, they can block the ditch with bodies, but even then the river will relentlessly continue pouring in and overflowing the bodies).

3. Keep several defensive lines to fall back to and make sure that they are at least slightly manned. Also try not hauling up in places that have no exit, if you hide in a basement, then once the door is breached, you have nowhere to run whilst the enemy has an endless supply of creatures that do not need to rest.

4. Weapons that are quick to make: Bows, Crossbows and Slings, along with clubs and polearms (A village blacksmith should be able to quickly reshape the socket on a scythe or billhook to fit upright on a sturdy stick). Spears are somewhat quick as well but requires making the tips, repurposing farming and logging tools is a lot quicker and very historical.

5. Armour that is quick to make serviceable: Helmets and shields. These two pieces of armour has served humanity for millenia, and they are always the first two pieces of armour to be developed (even if they are later discarded due to how warfare changes).

6. You should be able to find pitch as well as burning charcoal, there should be coalers if there are forests, find them and get everything you can, not to make gunpowder, but to make areas covered in pitch and dusted charcoal under dry straw, it will not be an explosive fire, but if you can cover a crossroads in a street in it and manage to just muscle up a bunch of shields to close off the area, you can trap large groups of animals or ghouls on a patch that is very flammable and then start lobbing your ethanol-based molotovs at the enemy.

7. If there is a forest, and you really honestly DO have carte blanche to build anything, you can build trebuchets. I'm not even pulling your leg on this, they are highly immoble weapons and require several large trees and something such as sand or stone (or dirt from ditches) to put in the basket, but with a dedicated crew and a PC steering the drawings, it should not take more than a few days (at most) to build one. All the memes aside, anything that lets you hurl chunks of buildings or barrels of holy water into the undead hordes will be insanely useful.

[Pauly]

Firstly it sounds like the DM is being inspired the Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai so I would watch that before the next session. The big thing is getting the party and villagers to work together, and have the adventurers inspire the villagers. Perhaps the villagers have some stashes of useful weapons or defenses that they won’t bring out unless they fully trust the PCs, because they have to worry about next time.

I’d also suggest some falling or rolling log traps, like the ewoks in the Battle of Endor if the terrain permits. If you have large blocks of stone from the quarry get them hoisted up high enough to drop on the bad guys.

I would definitely check the church for secret tunnels and entrances. That seems like an obvious ‘gotcha’ point for a GM who enjoys killing PCs. Also boost the church’s holiness by blessings and what not, while it may or may not do anything in D&Ds mechanics (I haven’t played D&D for years) it will help the villager’s morale.

Also have a plan to follow up and kill the vampire. If you don’t then the villagers aren’t going to be happy because they know the vamp will be back and next time there will be no adventurers to protect them.

Finally work out if there is anything specific that needs to be protected (eg the village’s womenfolk). If the vampire wants something in particular make it harder for him to get.

[Mr Beer]

I've already asked the DM about black powder. Unfortunately, the only thing I was able to get was a single pound of charcoal. There is a tavern, though. Hopefully they grow their own grain so I'm not stuck with whatever trade goods happen to pass through town. Bribing the townsfolk might be difficult. They're a pretty apathetic lot.

One pound? Charcoal should be readily available and can be made easily, like you personally could make some if need be.

Saltpetre is available under old cess pits and animal barns.

Sulphur is trickier, it seems plausible to me that you may not be able to acquire sulphur in a village given little time.

[InvisibleBison]

I've already asked the DM about black powder. Unfortunately, the only thing I was able to get was a single pound of charcoal. There is a tavern, though. Hopefully they grow their own grain so I'm not stuck with whatever trade goods happen to pass through town. Bribing the townsfolk might be difficult. They're a pretty apathetic lot.

As for the flares, I'm hoping to get some fireworks from the travelling circus parked outside town. It's a little suspicious, but it's the best shot I've got.

I'm pretty sure fireworks are made out of gunpowder.

[SleepyShadow]

Thanks to everyone for helping me out with this

Failing that, divert part of the river upstream so that it can flow on both sides of the village, then funnel the diverted water back into the main flow to complete the enclosure. This is a ton of work, though, and there may not be a suitable path for the water to take. Theoretically, any area might be protected by constructing aquaducts, but that's even more work.

I don't really have the manpower for that kind of undertaking. There's only maybe three hundred people in the village, and most of them are preoccupied organizing a lynch mob for the rest of my party.

7. If there is a forest, and you really honestly DO have carte blanche to build anything, you can build trebuchets. I'm not even pulling your leg on this, they are highly immoble weapons and require several large trees and something such as sand or stone (or dirt from ditches) to put in the basket, but with a dedicated crew and a PC steering the drawings, it should not take more than a few days (at most) to build one. All the memes aside, anything that lets you hurl chunks of buildings or barrels of holy water into the undead hordes will be insanely useful.

The whole village is surrounded by a forest, and I really do have carte blanche to build anything I can think of using available materials. I'm going to build a trebuchet! It'll definitely come in handy when we counterattack the vampire's castle. Also, using siege weapons to chuck holy water is a great idea.

I would definitely check the church for secret tunnels and entrances. That seems like an obvious ‘gotcha’ point for a GM who enjoys killing PCs.

Finally work out if there is anything specific that needs to be protected (eg the village’s womenfolk). If the vampire wants something in particular make it harder for him to get.

Good thinking on the church basement. Sounds like the sort of stuff our GM would pull. He says he feels bad for killing characters, then traps us in a cellar with a shambling mound that had 50 hp more than normal. We were level 2 at the time (we are level 3 now), so that's how we lost two characters out of the five that died last session.

Yeah, the vampire is after a particular village girl NPC. He's also after some random witch hunter NPC hiding out in the basement of the local windmill. He's also really mad at my character for "disrupting the status quo". I guess I could hide the two NPCs in the church after we clear it for secret tunnels.

I'm pretty sure fireworks are made out of gunpowder.

With the way things are going, the fireworks are going to be made out of pixie dust. Or sawdust. Or spite.