Garrison of the KEEP
How many troops in the KEEP?
Turns out there are a lot. But it’s hard to see that when you read Keep on the Borderlands (KotB) encounter-by-encounter. The chart at right shows the organizational hierarchy of the garrison, with the Castellan at the top (each troop type cited by encounter area, general location, number and level; note the chain of command).
For those of you who don’t like colourful PDFs, here’s a quick breakdown of the forces the Castellan can field:
- 9 officers
- 1 bailiff (F3)
- 3 captains of infantry (F3)
- 1 captain of horse (F3)
- 1 serjeant (F2)
- 3 corporals (F2)
- 30 cavalry
- 12 heavy horse (F1)
- 18 medium horse (F1)
- 170 men-at-arms (F1)
- 2 couriers (F1)
The Garrison in the Campaign
Ostensibly, the garrison’s role is to defend the KEEP against the hostile forces in the Borderlands. The historical reality (at least in my campaigns) is that it ended up being an internal law-enforcement body when PCs created mayhem within the KEEP. In a full-on campaign setting, though, the garrison’s role can expand as:
- Escorts to specific encounter areas (e.g., sections of the Caves of Chaos)
- Extra muscle when exploring the wilderness
- Scouts that accompany the party as they press beyond the boundaries of KotB’s wilderness map
But it’s important to remember that the troops aren’t retainers, henchmen, or even mercenaries. The garrison’s primary mission is to protect the KEEP and its inhabitants, so they’re not likely to be sent off with adventurers unless the mission is vital to the KEEP’s interests, and the PCs can be trusted.
To that latter bit, the KEEP is on the Borderlands, established to protect the REALM. It’s entirely reasonable, therefore, to deploy the garrison to root out, meet, and neutralise threats outside the walls, quite possibly alongside the PCs. In fact, the module alludes to this when describing that characters could gain access to the Inner Bailey…
…if the adventurers perform a heroic act in behalf of the KEEP, if they bring back an exceptional trophy or valuable prisoners, or if they contribute a valuable magic item or 1,000 or more gold pieces to the place. They will be invited to a feast and revel, and then closely watched and carefully questioned. If the Castellan likes the looks of the group, and his assistants agree, he will ask them to perform a special mission (suitable to their ability, but difficult – use the area map or the Caves of Chaos to find a suitable goal). [KotB, p. 7]
With that in mind, I’d recommend that the best and most logical way to get the garrison involved in the PCs’ adventures is the for the PCs to get in good with the Castellan. Given a positive relationship, the PCs could offer their services as scouts for the KEEP–kind of a “commando” force for special field ops–conducting recon missions, bringing back intelligence to the Castellan, then leading expeditionary forces that include troops to deal with the problem.
UPDATE (8/11/15): For the GM with OCD, I’d suggest using the Monster Reactions table on B24. Roll 2d6, and add the lead PC’s charisma modifier, along with +1 for each of the above conditions met (i.e., exceptional trophy, valuable prisoner or magic item, per 1,000gp). A roll of 2 indicates enmity, and the Castellan will encourage the PCs to leave the KEEP; rolls of 3-8 indicate interest without commitment (further observation is required); rolls of 9-11 are met with approval, while a roll of 12 or more show the Castellan’s trust, which translates to some aid on the PCs’ next foray outside the KEEP’s walls (start such aid small and escalate: maps, equipment, weapons, armour, guides, potions and scrolls, men-at-arms, officers).
Logistics
To keep things balanced, the level of troops and officers attached to the party are always lower than that that of the PCs (e.g., the Castellan will send 1st-level men-at-arms when the PCs reach 2nd-level, 2nd-level serjeants when the PCs are 3rd-level, etc.).
The Castellan will agree to sending the KEEP’s troops only if the party agrees to contribute a full share of treasure to the KEEP’s war chest (use the guidelines on page 4 of KotB and count the Castellan as a PC when dividing up magical treasure).
Though KotB makes no mention of it, assume the KEEP collects a semi-regular stream of raw recruits from the REALM to maintain the garrison, rotate in new officers, and replace slain or injured troops. Every month, add 0-3 new recruits (F1 men-at-arms). When new troops arrive, there’s a 1/6 chance that an existing man-at-arms is promoted to corporal (F2).
These numbers increase in any month that a PC gains a new experience level (assume the Castellan’s glowing reports to the REALM of success on the Borderlands improve recruiting efforts). In those months, 2-5 new recruits arrive, and that there’s a 2/6 chance of a promotion to corporal.
Very creative, at first glance it appears there’s a dearth of nco’s. The org chart is great and one for the forces arranged against the keep might also be worth investigating. Since Gygax also undoubtedly thought in terms of miniature battles I would postulate the table of organization you have outlined is easily translatable to Chainmail. It might be interesting to scope that out and the forces arranged against the keep in a pitched battle.
Another thought I had was what if the Castellan’s soldiers were part of a legion, you could have troop rotation by companies, attrition might account for some losses, deaths, training accidents, re-assignments, illnesses, capture, and desertion of course. Is manpower an issue? What about a detachment of scouts the players could join, aka X4, and then be assigned scouting missions by some Captain under the Castellan.
Yeah, the number of NCOs is surprisingly low. Two possible interpretations: (1) there used to be more, but they got dead and haven’t been replaced, or (2) the rigours of the Borderlands demand a high level of self-determination from the troops, making NCOs less of a necessity.
I do like the idea of arranging a similar chart for the Caves, and possibly the civilians in the KEEP (which makes me think of what factions might exist within).
Your comment about being part of a legion makes me wonder if the KEEP’s garrison is at full strength. “Is manpower an issue?” I’d say yes – you have 200 troops defending a walled settlement that relies on external supply while surrounded by wilderness filled with humanoids, bandits, giant spiders, and a mad hermit.
But the idea of PCs getting attached to regular patrols makes sense – either as scouts, extra muscle for caravan duty, or as “expendable assets” until they’ve proven themselves to the Castellan.
Typically, lacking magic or cannons or some sort of wall-crushing or surpassing method, 30-40 troops could hold the Keep as long as supply held out. This has been true of historical castles and some of them had less defenses than the Keep.
So, why have 200?
The Keep can’t eat without defending the farmsteads. Now, if you are a farmer, you’ve likely got a fortified farmhouse compound in this area, but you can’t stay in that if you want to actually farm. So someone has to do patrolling aggressively to deter and drive off raiders.
There’s a discussion of how many farms and how many farm-workers/dwellers would be needed. I contend the number mentioned is low given the threat environment and the likelihood of raids from humanoids who also need food but don’t appear to farm much.
http://awizardinabottle.blogspot.ca/2010/08/nearest-villages-not-to-speak-about.html
I imagine 120 farmsteads and maybe 2400 people need to be in the area to support the keep itself. Keeping them safe and working would be the major part of the the jobs of the garrison. I would expect at least 40 soldiers on patrol each day, some mounted, some on foot. Patrols could easily be 20 strong and take several days (2-3 with foot patrols, maybe 4-5 with mounted) to do their sweep and return.
I suspect that any leader in this sort of scenario would find scouts/strikers to be of great benefit.
If one presumes a feudality, 2400 people could easily require a further handful of knights, each with a manor and a small retinue (say another 10-20 men-at-arms with a sergeant or two). These would be patrolling too. Altogether, there could be 100 men at arms out on patrol in the region counting the local knights and the garrison.
That seems like a lot when you look at the numbers of humanoids, but remember, the humanoids likely fight as irregulars – hit and run raids, strike where the patrol isn’t, raid caravans and farms, operate in small raiding parties of maybe 15-20, strike and retreat, hit at night as much as possible except that means farm compound attacks whereas open field raids might yield harvested food and slaves too.
The main challenge (until the humanoid numbers become vast or until something very dangerous (tribe of ogres, bunch of trolls, a small dragon) moves into the area) will be intercepting or locating the raiders. Or tracking them back home. Most often, the patrols will not be where the raiders strike (as the raiders aren’t stupid).
Scouts, trackers, rangers, and hit-and-run troops with good intel capacity and the ability to skirmish with raiding bands independently would be prized by the Castellan and local Knights.
I elected to go integrate the Keep in my own campaign as follows:
The Keep was an older ruin (there are other ruins in the area) that had been abandoned and fallen into disrepair long ago. It was well located, had a good artesian water source, and the valley stretching to the West had a lot of farming potential. The area had always been a tough place to live. The former fortifications of the area were all ruins or abandoned long ago as the threats emerged from the mountains and the prior nation collapsed.
What was left was a bunch of die-hard farmers, hunters, foragers, and frontiersmen. They erected wooden pallisades around their villages and came up with ways to patrol and to deal with (do an extent) the threat of humanoid raiding parties. One way they did this was to use large mastiffs with excellent senses of smell as part of their night patrols, partially cancelling the ambush advantages of the humanoids. These fierce hounds were also significant combatants.
The people of the region are called Bordermen. They hew to the ‘Old Faith’ (druidic) and are more independent and superstitious than the people from the feudal heart of the Kingdom that now has lordship over the Borderlands. They have legends of the other ruins, dangers, and riches that lie within the Blackstone mountains nearly…. and of the bad ends that those looking for the riches and secrets will find.
The ruin sat upon an old road running into the mountains which would, eventually, come out to other populations (some Freeholds, then eventually a large Kingdom with ties to intra-continental trade). Recently (about 20 years ago), the local King responsible for the area (the Borders), his Duke, his Eorl, and the Eorl’s Thanes came to a conclusion that the old road needed revived to allow further trade (and mostly secure trade it would have to become) to get across and onto the intra-continental trade lanes. They sent emissaries to neighbouring Kingdoms down the intra-continental trade lanes and they have sent token additional forces to help (and the Kingdom at the other side of the mountain range is working on securing its entry point to the passage and they will one day meet in the middle).
To secure this trade, they needed a robust military presence. They needed to establish local security at their end of the trade route first, then push their control through the mountain pass. To do that, they needed a lynchpin fortification/base on their side of the mountains.
Some studies of old ruins in the areas and good sites told them the original Blackstangate Keep had been well placed. The fact it still had good water and the Keep was largely physically intact (even if run down and in need of repair and updates) made the site compelling. Of course, updating an empty facility is also a lot cheaper than building a new walled city and keep on a bluff…. that’s also why this project was possible.
A 20-year long effort of investment cleaned out, repaired, updated, and modified the Keep to not only support a military garrison, but to provide a walled civilian space for commerce and other related activities. This would give a waypoint not easily raided and destroyed at this end of the Northern Passage.
(Note this is version 2 of Blackstangate Keep. B2! – I literally just realized that as I type this….)
The Keep is up and running, but the garrison is understrength for what a small walled city should have (doubly so in a a world of big magic and threats). This is because life in other parts of the world has become ‘interesting’ and the sovereign and his major nobles (including the Duke and the Eorl under him) have had to divert their focus elsewhere. The castle is in good shape, but the garrison is understrength.
Why is this good? Because that means there is an excellent reason for the Castellan to be open to any adventuring group of good character that can help conduct special operations and strikes without much garrison support (they need to be protecting 2400 farmers in the valley).
The Castellan needs to deal with a serious humanoid threat (combined humanoid joint operations in growing numbers from an unknown base and with unknown overall goals) so he can then start looking at allocating more security to expeditions through the mountains (likely eventually building small fortifications along the way as rest-stops). The need means he’s more open to using ‘irregulars’ (adventurers) versus his own forces.
I am using the ‘Scouts’ as a place for the PC party to make some friends and get some contacts and area expertise.
If the PCs can bring money and security to the area, the Castellan will push to expand the trade route sooner.
What is not yet known is that there are larger threats than the humanoids of the Caves. There are eventually higher level baddies who are part of larger plots in the mountains – not all of them human and some perhaps even strange and horrible in nature. (The campaign arc should keep us in the vicinity of the Keep and the trade route until about L7 or 8 and then L9-15 might be in pursuing the bad guys into their homes deep within the mountain ranges, below them into the great under-deeps, and perhaps even into more bizarre locales).
There are Saxon laws about how many spearmen you need to patrol walls of a particular length in a Burh and how many acres of farmland you need to supply that number of men to the Fyrd.
From the Bughal Hidage: “…160 men are always required for 1 furlong, then every pole of wall is manned by 4 men…” in old money (which is what D&D uses of course, though even the UK these days most of us are hard-pushed to remember how long a pole or a fulong is, given that we agreed to go metric in the 1890s or something).
Anyway, the ‘160 men’ looks pretty close to the 170 men-at-arms; however, the length of the wall looks to be much more than 1furlong or 660 feet (the extra 10 men might give you another 41′ 3″ if I’ve mathsed good). Even calling it at ‘about 700 feet’, the Keep’s wall is more like 1100 feet. So the Burghal Hidage gives is approximately the right order of magnitude but not exactly the right formula I think.
The calculation of area needed to support 170 men is quite large, 850 hides which as an estimate of acreage gives 34,000 acres of the best/highest-taxed farmland to 102,000 acres for the worst/lowest-taxed. So (assuming late Anglo-Saxon political economy) the size of the Keep’s farmlands would be between 53 and 159 square miles (‘farm’ originally meant the food-render to the king, burh, army etc). They’d usually be expected to be close-by but that implies a circle (if the Keep were at the centre) of between 4 and 7 miles in radius. We probably have to assume that the farmlands are off to the west and hopefully protected, but this does make it more difficult to supply men and provisions to the Keep.
All calculations are provisional, happy to be shown where I might have made any mistakes. But my 53-159 square miles seems very different to the idea of 120 farms.
I pulled mine from some information on medieval farming that I don’t have at hand right at this instant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burh
A Burh was sometimes a stone faced construction, but often was a palisade fort atop a berm (often these were temporary fortifications which were reference in the Burghal Hidage). That sort of fortification, being less of a defensive force multiplier vs. a full stone castle/keep with terrain advantage, would need more soldiers to hold than later medieval castles or keeps. With the majority of the walls not being approachable conventionally and not easily scaled by escalade, 30-40 men might well hold the keep simply by holding the area of the main gate with limited attention to the other locales.
A siege might get them out, but taking out such a place by force would, in my books, involve either assistance from inside (to overwhelm the primary gate and admit hostile forces) or the use of some form of magical or airborne attack to insert hostile forces or some very impressive siege machinery to bust down wall sections or magical equivalents to do same. I suppose some form of magical or creature-driven burrowing or creatures with natural or magical climbing could also help render the geographic advantages of the keep as moot.
However, that whole discussion runs the risk of traipsing into the whole ‘why build a castle in a world where a wizard can fly over, drop fireballs or a rock to mud, and wipe out conventional fortifications and armies?’. It’s like the near-C rock situation in space games – you generally just ignore it because if you can accelerate large masses to intersect planets, there’s not much you can do to stop it. So we pretend such magics are rare and that wizards are either kept in check by guilds, by peers, by the churches, by having better and more interesting things to do or we go mad trying to imagine how to defend against these sorts of exceptional threats that actually exist in a fantasy world.
Now, in terms of a small garrison holding the keep, I’m just talking about holding the Keep from a force majeure conventional assault, vs. actually doing what the garrison was meant to do – protect the farmland. To do that, you do need a substantial garrison.
I’m not sure the 1 soldier : 5 hides ratio means what you suggest (or that it does not, either). That’s the amount that was enshrined in the law which may not be consonant with how many soldiers could be supported by a hide. We’re looking at the legislation and assuming that represents the capability/capacity. That may or may not be accurate in either direction.
https://medium.com/migration-issues/notes-on-medieval-population-geography-fd062449364f
This is a rather amazing read on the whole issue of what armies were like, what population centers were like, what combat looked like, and why throughout the Middle Ages with some comments about why this would change in the later stages heading off towards the Renaissance.
It doesn’t exactly cover the impact of hostile intelligent beings that may be a fairly grave threat to humanity (kill you because we kill and eat you because we eat meat orcs and goblins, vs. casting your orcs and goblins more like mongols or human tribal societies of other sorts). In those settings, the military needs might force more militias, more professional troops, a stronger central organization (with professional soldiers, tactics, and logistics) and you might well expect churches that have magical powers and wizard academies to be part of the state apparatus – because disorganization and not being as good at fighting as creatures that live to fight means you fail and die…
I set my goblins and orcs more like tribal raiders most of the time. That’s sort of the model I envision from the Caves of Chaos. They threaten farms and such, but not the Keep as such (though their patrols are fair game). The goblins are smaller and probably use stealth, ambush, night attacks, and generally ganging up on the less able vs. the orcs and gnolls and bugbears who might well just rely on their power to engage, but they still want to not fight the entire organized keep garrison at once. Ogres and Trolls are a big help, but you really need a bunch of giants or a whack of trolls and ogres and some evil wizards to make taking on the full Keep an option. But raiding, hitting their farms and supply convoys, impeding trade, taking slaves (or walking meals) – these are all options for the humanoids and this forces the garrison (and PCs) to become mobile defenders who accept higher risk rather than staying in the keep where things are pretty safe.
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
This site is pretty amazing for medieval demographics.
Hi Tom,
Good research and thanks for the info. I’ve wrestled with this off and on by trying to adjust the garrison for the acreage and come up with two conclusions: First, the KEEP matches no historical demographic precedent – at least, not with the information provided in B2. There’s no indication of how much arable land exists (presumably very little given the wilderness map), and the “civilian” population is far too low to support the garrison as cited. Second, medieval demographics is a tricky thing: to get average values, one has to expand the scope to include data from very large historical examples, and there are *always* outliers.
Given all that, my own solution was to take the population figures provided and make the facts fit them: as an outpost, the KEEP is primarily a military installation established to ward the frontier border. Supplies must be imported from the REALM, though the long-term plan would be to attract settlers and develop homesteads as soon as the area becomes safe enough to do so. Given the Caves of Chaos, the Caves of the Unknown, and the (known) wilderness encounters, it could take a long time…
As a side note, there’s an online version of the Medieval Demographics tool here: https://www.welshpiper.com/medieval-demographics-online/ As you’ll see in the comments, it’s far from exact, but it should give folks a good starting point.
Cheers!
The Keep is an odd beast. It’s design is more fortified town than military outpost. Military outposts don’t come with a Jeweler or a bank. it has a clearly delineated civilian area and a military area (outer and inner baileys respectively). That argues that it should be viable as a town.
If I was viewing it as you suggest, I would expect the following changes:
a) More cavalry – with a supply system totally dependent on THE REALM, their patrols would have to do a good job of keeping the regular weekly or biweekly wagon train intact. Allowing even one of these trains to be taken out could be a big issue.
b) Fewer foot – the location is defensible by geography and you aren’t going to effectively sally rapid response with foot. If there are no farms nearby, then no need for so many foot. You might want to up your archers though or crossbowmen (easier and less training for the later).
c) You have to get all of your supplies in before the end of fall with surplus to last through the winter. That means you need some significant warehousing which I don’t see accounted for by the current layout. I suspect the food would be warehoused in several large warehouses inside the inner bailey. I think that would justify putting a couple of such large buildings in the open area in the inner bailey. You need a bit of room for emergencies and for training, but not as much as is allocated. You do need the food stores. Alternative 2 would be underground food stores (accessed from the inner bailey) that would keep the food cooler.
d) Turf some of the civilian forces and pick variants of the map layout that have more military things in them (making it a full military outpost – some map versions you can find look like they did that). Or at least look at the civilian roles represented in light of the garrison (no jeweler, no bank, get rid of other non-military-service-industry occupants. Armourer, Weaponcrafter, doctor, priests (maybe militant ones like the Romans had), paymaster (vs. bank), taverner, bigger stables, comfort station (the soldiers will want their needs met), undertaker, chandler/spicer/grocer, maybe a small gaming establishment.
e) Your humanoids may be embroiled enough in their internecine strife to not have figured out how critical the supply caravans are, but if they do get welded together by a strong leader and one who knows a bit, like an evil human ex-legionairy, they would then make a point of targeting the keep’s supply chain and (effectively by raiding supply caravans) they would put the keep into a de facto siege. That could be a good starting point to explain why the Castellan is desperate to get adventurers to help raid the humanoids to either drive them further off, kill them, or at least disrupt their alliances and leadership to ease the situation.
f) In the long run, due to the vulnerability of the keep’s supply lines, they will *have* to make a concerted military effort to destroy the local humanoids or else they will lose the keep (starved out then taken when they are week) or they will have to retreat and abandon the keep as untenable.
The other option is for the REALM to push more forces, more civilians to start the colonizing, and more resources into this effort.
Note that the American West was colonized by civilians sometimes with good military coverage but often with spotty or non-existent military coverage while there were hostile natives that were happy to raid and kill them. Some settlers were killed, some formed local defensive militias, some petitioned for more support from their Eastern governments, some struck up relations of a friendly or mutually beneficial nature with the natives, and some managed to just endure raids, not get killed, but lose some women, food, luxuries and money to the raiders. Some areas, colonies failed then were later re-established by more settlers or by settlers + military. In the long run, the government put enough military boots on the ground to dictate terms to the natives or just killed them outright if they resisted being moved to reservations.
It’s funny how much your scenario feels like that sort of setup to me. Colonialism is occurring, but so far just the thin edge of the wedge.
Does that make Goblins and Orcs and so on the oppressed native communities? Hmmm. That’s a bit of an uncomfortable viewpoint… (or else grist for some deeper RP)…. depends a lot on if your humanoids are inherently and completely evil or just barbaric carnivores who are otherwise similar to human tribes of various times and places.
If I find the spreadsheet that has the way I arrived at 2400 people and 120 farms (by farm, I mean manor possibly), I’ll see if it sheds any light on where I got the data. I’m pretty sure it was based on certain ideas of how much land was in a manor, how big a typical farm was population wise, and how big it was size wise, and what that could support.
I may have given higher agricultural output rates based on the keep being in a valley with a river flowing through it (and thus possibly on the flood plain and having rich soil as a result). They certainly have water available.
Speculation: I’m guessing if we ever had a fantasy computer war game that modeled not only the fights, but the colonization efforts, that in a world dense with different intelligences, one of two things would be true: a) The races would have to learn to be more cosmopolitan and accepting and live together in places (happens in our real world throughout history in different spots) or b) any expansion or colonization in the face of a hostile native population would have to be driven by a centrally organized political direction with a military lead element that would beat down and pacify the area before settlers moved in. But it wouldn’t make sense to have a dilute effort that could fail because not enough resources were committed – I suspect a realm would pick one direction (the most promising) and push hard at that with enough force to take and pacify land (or they would not bother). And the colonization would be artificially pushed to happen quickly thereafter to secure control of the newly pacified land. That might be the best expansion strategy. Trying half-hearted and not-robustly supported expansion on all fronts might mean a long history of unsuccessful expansions in the face of resistant native populations (human or humanoid).
hello. This is great stuff.
I may have missed it but is there a breakdown (halberdiers, spearmen, longbowmen, crossbowmen, etc.)?
Hi Ben,
Not yet, but I think you just gave me an extra credit assignment…
-Erin
I’ve been working on a more detailed map of the keep. This keep has serious logistic problems. The Inner castle part in particular. There simply is not enough room for everything described in the legend.
The only way to put and justify the number of troops is to assume that it is a reinforced garrison with people sleeping in the hallways. You don’t just need the beds for the 64 troops, you need the cooks, kitchen, guest bedrooms, and then the claim of a need for meeting rooms. The kitchen facilities alone take up a bunch of space. Non soldier staff? Probably a dozen at least. Then there is the fact that there is almost no room for food storage for this many people. The best compromise I could come up with is about 36 troops in the main castle, all in bunk beds and hallways used for armories. If i start packing them in, I can get about 50, but then the entire thing is sleeping quarters (minus kitchen area and suite for ruler).
I figured the same.
When I redrew the keep, I added more apartments, stores, etc in the outer keep.
In the inner keep, I added additional wooden buildings in the inner courtyard.
I blew the scale up a bit, added more wall and tower, and created a second gate to the outside to the outer keep area opposite the main gate.
For the size of force needed in a rough area, the keep needed to be bigger.
I also assumed the valley to the West had villages and fields and that the villages had pallisade walls.
Without farming, the logistics of feeding the keep would be impractical.
I am trying to start with what the numbers say work back from there to understand what is up.
1) The keep was never designed for this many troops.
2) The keep does not have a village around it or farms
3) This implies that the keep was recently reinforced to protect from a threat.
4) This also implies that most of the troops are being used to protect it’s own logistics.
5) This means that the keep is not in a normal sustainable situation and the people in the keep are pretty stressed out.
6) Adventurers entering the keep should notice a very active presence. Depending on what the keep has been dealing with, there is either a grim mood with all, or they are in a situation where only the top officers understand how serious the problem is.
7) This is a high tempo operation with the garrison.
8) The hallways of the keep are stacked with troop quarters.
9) With the troops managing logistics garrison duties, they need the adventurers, to scout and help out.
As to your point 3: What’s the exact threat that justifies the construction of a fairly expensive fortification which takes likely years and years to complete, yet the threat is an ‘abnormal state’ from both a logistical and personnel accommodations perspective?
For me, it was protecting a new trade route. You need to imagine something where you’d need a garrison (temporary measured in months or years likely…) versus just an expeditionary force to deal with a threat and then return to whence it came.
Is the threat new or at least revived and thus an emergent phenomena that must be responded to quickly? Is there an expectation dealing with it will require a force presence for many months or a bunch of years? Does it justify the establishment of a base?
In my interpretation, the Keep was simply a refurbished castle from back in antiquity when perhaps it was a seat of government in the area before whatever prior kingdom fell. Refurbishment is faster than new construction and cheaper.
The other thing to question if it is such a military fort is why do you have the seemingly civilian merchants (jeweller?!! etc.)? Should those be converted to more barracks or at least military related space usage?
Mine, being on a growing intra-continental potentially high value trading route, justifies the force to be kept around for as long as it takes to pacify the threats and ensure the expansion of the reach of law and order across the caravans’ route (likely leading to the construction of day-forts or fortified inns backed up to aggressive mounted patrols and strong escorts on caravans).
Given your other points, your point 4 becomes of paramount importance (supply is critical) so you would likely have lots of opportunities for players to arrive in the area with the next military supply train and they’d have plenty of opportunity to gain some XP escorting supply caravans.
7 and 9 are well taken together as an impetus for characters to be useful but also for them to put vigorously to work. However, their activity would be directed in service of the larger strategic goal (which is probably not plundering tombs, etc). Scouting and striking against humanoids with the eventual goal of destroying or driving those threats off could be one very valid use.
Any side-quest stuff would have to be kept somewhat reasonable time-wise as the adventurers become a key part of the overall strategic success.
Overall, that interpretation seems viable and different from mine, which is great. What the keep needs is a good raison d’etre and the corollaries of that need to show up in the game and you’re solidly hitting that target IMO.
Hello,
The org chart and outline reference a Captain of Horse at 24, and a Captain of Infantry at 26. Where are these characters described?
Hi Wolfpack,
The short answer is that these worthies are extrapolations I invented (and I think that must be why I coloured their org chart boxes differently, now that I think on it). If memory serves, my reasoning was that adding these two made for a more realistic command structure.
While the Inner Bailey has a full chain of command (Captain -> Sergeant -> 2 Corporals -> 80 men-at-arms), the KEEP Fortress has 32 men-at-arms, 2 couriers, and 30 cavalry reporting directly to the Castellan, which didn’t seem appropriate for a man with non-military assistants (i.e., scribe and advisor) whose daily duties are “tending to business and holding audience.” (pg. 11) I figured there must be someone responsible for keeping these troops in line, leading daily drill, and conducting jousting practice (q.v., #21).
Adding a pair of Captains (F3 to stay consistent) seemed reasonable. These would be fairly enviable positions, reporting directly to the Castellan, in the KEEP Fortress proper, and as such, wouldn’t be available to NCOs.
A lot depends on an individual interpretation of the role of the Keep. In my world, the Keep sits astride a key potential trade route through a mountain chain that needs to be expanded and secured. There’s a lot of commerce that could be happening if this happens, so there’s a lot of push from the Eorl and the Duke to make progress. With a growing collection of communities and more merchantile interests moving in, and more garrison and passing-through military in support of caravan protection and scouting, it’s quite reasonable to assume the Castellan is regularly busy dealing with the responsibilities of a feudal leader as well as all of the expansion / strategic planning so heaving a significant staff would make sense.
In a smaller border fort with no particular vast imperative to expand (and which is primarily a defensive frontier bulwark), it may be that the amount of non-military administration does not require a great deal of attention (a couple of hours in the morning).
However, in either case, everyone should (in the end) be answerable and directed by the Castellan. In the border fort scenario, he might still have time to direct the troops…. BUT…. in any case as you say, he should still have officers in charge of individual formations.
I think a lot of folk don’t understand military structure from way back. You have someone like Caesar Augustus who actively took command of military formations and led long marches and strikes against towns, against villages of barbarians, and who was a very hands on military leader at times (especially while he was younger) but that was all in the larger aim of securing territory and long term strategic peace (or at least lack of invasion) for provinces of the Empire. But even with him being hands on, he still had senior officers and NCOs under him.
Also, the question of corporals and sergeants is interesting.
There were periods in history where you had a Lord or General (leader) and then you had one layer of subleader (Captain) and then the men the Captain personally led. That was all the structure people had. Most forces then were not professionals – farmer conscripts or soldier-cum-bandits (as a soldier needing pay and food inevitably of necessity becomes a brigand). The Captain was the man who mustered and led them and the companies could be 20-100. The army structure then was that the General/Lord called for all the companies he could from the Captains that would come to his banner, and thus was the army. It was an almost ad hoc structure.
Sergeants, Lieutenants, Corporals, Majors, and a variety of other roles (file closers are another example – depending the period and the forces being looked at) were all useful once you started to have standing armies but that usually required enough spare agriculture to support them (vs citizen farmer levees) and they expected to be paid more, have better gear and training, and they didn’t farm). But they could usually eat citizen farmer armies for breakfast so in the long run, you wanted a standing army.
It makes lots of sense to have a structure at the KEEP. It would seem the REALM has a standing military and an ability to support forts like the KEEP despite the cost and with minimal agriculture represented on the area map (it takes a fair bit to support a castle like the KEEP is). So having all the intermediate ranks (and likely some communications folks – buglers, flagmen, trumpeters, drummers, or even pipers – those also make sense in an organized military).
And if the keep is supposed to do patrolling, then having enough horse to support sweeps from the keep makes sense.
And one can imagine, given some of the armour and weaponry of the KEEP’s forces, that there has to be a decent support system (armourer, weaponsmiths, blacksmiths, etc) present as well.
I think you may be twelve men short. The number of men-at-arms in this count of the garrison is missing 8 more from The Keep Fortress (#24), 2 corporals (Corporal of the Guard from Tower (#20) and other Corporal from Great Tower (#23) and 2 men-at-arms from the cavalry stables (#22).
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