Boci
2010-03-14, 02:30 PM
So, our party has managed to acquire a town for ourselves. The settlement is located on top of a hill surrounded by a grassy plain with a forest nearby. A single road passes through it. Our total population is 2250 (1000 humans, 1000 elves and 250 goblins). We currently have 16,950gp in the town’s coffers, and the total revenue annually is 67,000gp, although there is a bit of a grey area on how much of this needs to be reinvested into the town. However, sufficient to say we have funds available to improve defences.
As far our military capabilities go, we have the following:
500 town guard (all human, don’t ask why)
750 combat able but untrained elves and humans
125 combat able goblins. They were formally from a rather war like clan so they probably have some basic combat training.
Note: We also have 750 human soldiers from the neighbouring kingdom, but they are not under our control. Also, we can turn one of the town guards into a 1st level NPC with a PC class for 5,000gp.
The town’s defences are as follows: the hill itself naturally, a moat filled with water, a wooden wall (the goblins live outside of this) and a keep in the north edge of the village (where we live).
So, what is the threat? The necromancers. Whilst the majority are simply interested in surviving as a nation and perfecting the art of raising humanoid corpses, a splinter group with far more military goals has broken free and is attempting to make its way towards the home of the dragons to resurrect their bodies as the ultimate war machine. Whilst we doubt we could train the town to hold its own against the dragolich, it would be nice to make sure they can cope with a small undead army of zombies, or anyone else we piss off during the game like the elves.
So far we have had the following ideas:
1. Turn the grassy plain around us into a mass of trenches and piles of compact earth and turn the straight road into an S shape to slow down approaching armies, especially siege gear.
2. Get siege gear of our own, ranging from catapults that fire a cluster of stones to defeat infantry, to hollow balls of iron and sealed ceramic pots filled with alchemist’s fire to counter enemy siege units.
3. Build supply centres within the keep for food and a well to be able to survive a siege. Also, experiment with growing crops in the dungeon area that do not require light, such as mushrooms.
4. Find a bush that is small above ground but with long deep reaching wooded roots and plant them all over the hill to slow down enemies who try tunnelling. The more difficult, but amusing, defence against such a tactic would be to dig out a series of tunnels and fill them with some sort of vermin like stormclaw scorpions, then seal all entrances and allow a digging enemies to open them up.
5. Equip all untrained but combat able members of the population with a crude bow (-2 on attacks) and instructs them on volley attacks. The DM has said this will cost 4,000gp.
6. Relocate the goblins within the town limits and train them as scouts. Possible a few elites as wolf cavalry.
7. Train a division of the town guard as Avengers to deal with lowly undead.
8. Experiment with raising zombies ourselves. The capital punishment in the town is slow death hanging ) i.e. not the neck breaking kind). The corpses are then used for experimentation. We also planned to offer members of the guards pensions for their families in return for their consent to be raised as undead when they die. These would then form a cannon fodder division of soldiers referred to as the nameless. They would wear leather masks and be assigned numbers (so no one actually has to look at one of them and know it is their loved one).
So, does anyone have any other ideas we could try to defend the town? Or any ways to actually achieve any of the above mechanically, either official or homebred?
As far our military capabilities go, we have the following:
500 town guard (all human, don’t ask why)
750 combat able but untrained elves and humans
125 combat able goblins. They were formally from a rather war like clan so they probably have some basic combat training.
Note: We also have 750 human soldiers from the neighbouring kingdom, but they are not under our control. Also, we can turn one of the town guards into a 1st level NPC with a PC class for 5,000gp.
The town’s defences are as follows: the hill itself naturally, a moat filled with water, a wooden wall (the goblins live outside of this) and a keep in the north edge of the village (where we live).
So, what is the threat? The necromancers. Whilst the majority are simply interested in surviving as a nation and perfecting the art of raising humanoid corpses, a splinter group with far more military goals has broken free and is attempting to make its way towards the home of the dragons to resurrect their bodies as the ultimate war machine. Whilst we doubt we could train the town to hold its own against the dragolich, it would be nice to make sure they can cope with a small undead army of zombies, or anyone else we piss off during the game like the elves.
So far we have had the following ideas:
1. Turn the grassy plain around us into a mass of trenches and piles of compact earth and turn the straight road into an S shape to slow down approaching armies, especially siege gear.
2. Get siege gear of our own, ranging from catapults that fire a cluster of stones to defeat infantry, to hollow balls of iron and sealed ceramic pots filled with alchemist’s fire to counter enemy siege units.
3. Build supply centres within the keep for food and a well to be able to survive a siege. Also, experiment with growing crops in the dungeon area that do not require light, such as mushrooms.
4. Find a bush that is small above ground but with long deep reaching wooded roots and plant them all over the hill to slow down enemies who try tunnelling. The more difficult, but amusing, defence against such a tactic would be to dig out a series of tunnels and fill them with some sort of vermin like stormclaw scorpions, then seal all entrances and allow a digging enemies to open them up.
5. Equip all untrained but combat able members of the population with a crude bow (-2 on attacks) and instructs them on volley attacks. The DM has said this will cost 4,000gp.
6. Relocate the goblins within the town limits and train them as scouts. Possible a few elites as wolf cavalry.
7. Train a division of the town guard as Avengers to deal with lowly undead.
8. Experiment with raising zombies ourselves. The capital punishment in the town is slow death hanging ) i.e. not the neck breaking kind). The corpses are then used for experimentation. We also planned to offer members of the guards pensions for their families in return for their consent to be raised as undead when they die. These would then form a cannon fodder division of soldiers referred to as the nameless. They would wear leather masks and be assigned numbers (so no one actually has to look at one of them and know it is their loved one).
So, does anyone have any other ideas we could try to defend the town? Or any ways to actually achieve any of the above mechanically, either official or homebred?