For my game I've decided to give Dale an Easterling threat to deal with on it's eastern border, and I'm taking a first stab at stating some Easterling raiders for a new party to encounter. I've chosen to base the easterlings on the Huns, so generally they'll be horse archers who use hit and run attacks. My first stab at a typical Hun raider is as follows.

"Hun" Raider
Attribute Level 4
Endurance 15
Hate 3
Parry 4 + 1 (Shield)
Armour 2d

Skills : Personality 2, Movement 3 (Favoured), Perception 2, Survival 2 (Favoured), Custom 2, Vocation 1

Weapon Skills: Composite Bow 3, Sabre 2, Lasso 2

Special Abilities: Fell Speed, Craven

Composite Bow: Damage 5, Edge 10, Injury 14, Called Shot: Pierce
Sabre: Damage 4, Edge 10, Injury 12, Called Shot: Disarm
Lasso: Damage n/a, edge n/a, injury n/a, Called shot: Ensnare

Notes:
I've used the Orc Guard as my template to provide an "near peer" opponent for my players - so encounters will be near 1-to-1 matches, or more to provide a challenge.

I've used "Fell speed" to simulate the ability of a mounted archer to make hit and run attacks, while Craven represents their preference to retreat if things are going against them.

The Lasso is there as I felt being able to do ensnare regularly would be to powerful for a lowly raider, but it makes a good called shot for when a character rolls a Sauron.

I'd be keen to hear what people think of this.

Thanks,

Mark

Looks pretty good to me.

I think they'll need a leader type guy with commanding voice to keep them from running off.

You might want to drop the shield for easy. As they can't use it while using their bows and I'm guessing it would be fairly hard to use a lasso as well while wearing a shield. Maybe just raise their parry by 1 to represent them using their horses for cover.

Firstly, thanks for the feedback.

You're right on them needing a leader type, and it's intentional. My plan is to have the players encounter raiding parties initially, and then eventually come across the leaders and their retinues. I'm going to stat these once I see how the raider works.

Also, in the wider situation, running off isn't all bad. In a full scale invasion, every raider that escapes is a raider that can fight another day.

On the shield front, it's intended to simulate a buckler (Which it seems Huns used with Bows and other weapons). I hear what you say, but since monsters don't follow the weapon rules for heroes, and there is a precedent for it (The Elven Buckler), I'm going to keep it for the moment. If nothing else it'll give some distinction for any abitilies that can ignore shields.

Thanks,

Mark

Looking good. I've been wondering about Easterlings myself. However, I was wondering how you intend to make your party fight them. As if they all use bows and ride around, surely any melee based party members would be useless. Also, the lasso seems a bit too cowboy like to me. But that's just my preference. I also know next to nothing about the huns

These guys look interesting.

Although I think that if they're constantly mounted, Beleg is correct. They are going to be a problem for heroes to deal with as characters are not mounted combat capable (per normal TOR rules). Obviously it could be handled by storytelling.

I would suggest setting up several "offstage" village raids where the party arrives too late and with few clues, probably no survivors. This should heighten the mystery and suspense a bit. Maybe implicate a beast of some kind at first ("Could it be a dragon, my Lord? The entire village was razed to the ground and much of the ground nearby.")

Then start increasing the survival rate; maybe catch a few stragglers still plundering a village where the Hun / Easterlings are off their horses. Eventually progressing to an encounter where the characters arrive in time to help defend during an attack and see the Hun mounted tactics. This should allow the characters to adjust tactics and/or change gear or whatever they think they need to do.

Otherwise I think you're limited to various defensive works around villages. Keeping infantry in several key s, or a cavalry unit.

Either that or some really big caltrops - and I want to see the dwarves' faces when you put in that special order request!

(I pity the villagers who have to pick them up though.)

There is a bit of a contrast between the IC logic and the system. If I understand the combat system correctly, there isn't actually a way for monsters to stay out of combat as the players set the stances.

(Although in theory, a group of monsters with fell speed could join combat and take part in opening ranged exchange, flee in the first round, and then repeat a little later)

My decision to go with mounted raiders was as follows: It seems clear to me that Dale is based on Anglo Saxon England. Taking the analogy of Bard being Alfred the Great, my first idea was to base the Easterlings on Viking invaders. However, I soon realised that I couldn't simulate the problem that Alfred faced; Viking raiders could strike anywhere due to their ship based raids - and Dale doesn't have a coastline equivalent. So, I hit upon the idea of using the mounted raiders.

I've already introduced the enemy, as they regular extort the settlements of Dale. Good idea on the Dragon though, wish I'd seen it earlier.

I expect the players will hit upon solutions that Alfred did (And you've suggested) - fortifying towns, cutting off common raiding routes, etc. And eventually the Easterlings will move into a full invasion (I've decided to have them spurred on by one of the fallen Wizards) where they'll have to give proper battle.

Thanks,

Mark

p.s. The Lasso thing is historical, though the ancient sources might have been exaggerating! Either way, it's a fun thing to add for a "special" attack.

I would probably go with AngloDanish rather than Anglo Saxon, although the cultures are broadly similar. The Northman styled names instead of Rohirric Saxon styled ones, the places like Dale(Yorkshire Dales) and the Long Lake(Windermere) just scream out 'Danelaw' at me.

On your Easterners, I think the 'ensnare' as a called shot is exactly the way to go. I also think that you are 'spot on' about the bucklers. Good effort.

Oh, and don't forget that it was Alfred who introduced a mounted Fyrd(although it's not clear whether they were trained to fight from horseback or were Proto Hobilars). An early form of rapid response unit....lol

Ok, historically I don't know or recall this Alfred, but considering it's "recent" history this is not surprising. I like more mature history.

Quite scarily my first word-association with the name Alfred while reading your posts was Alan Napier of the Batman TV Series from 1966!

Having seen the recent post, I'm quite interested in your Easterlings. I was wondering the other day how far you were having them travel to attack Dale and the like. Are they riding all the way from Rhun? Or have you created a smaller settlement somewhere closer?

@Halbarad: Anglo-Danish, I guess so Absolutely on the mounted Fyrd, that's one of the things I had in mind - even if they don't fight mounted, it'll allow them to respond to raids.

@Beleg: I've made a number of assumptions, I don't know how correct they are:

1) That the ancient Kingdom of Dale stretched from the Running River to Redwater. The major settlements clung to the banks of the two rivers, with one major settlement in the centre - "Gravewatch". This is the ancient burial cairn of the ancient Kings of Dale, and is linked to both Dale and the Old Forest road by (now disused and decayed) roads.

2) The Easterlings have already conquered everything East of the Redwater. They've been raiding into Dale for several years and no one has been able to stop them beyond paying them off. Almost all of the settlements on the Redwater failed to make tribute at some point and have been burned to the ground. Gravewatch has only recently been subject to raids but is running out of gold to pay them off.

In my game, King Bard is trying to unify the ancient settlements of Dale by calling on them to recall the oaths made to the ancient Kings (Which most have forgotten). My intention (Player character action allowing) is for the war to be the spur to unification, once again mirroring the story of Alfred the Great.

Mark

Shouldn't there be more farmers (and related professions) working the plains in small, scattered villages? I mean, total population wise? I could see the population density being concentrated in the river towns by the simple expedient of reliable trade. Particularly if there are buyers for these foodstuffs somewhere to the south.

Absolutely - I'm assuming that each of the major settlements on the map is a "market town" that is the focal point for surrounding farms.

It makes it easier to keep track of places on the map!

Mark

I have been working on a nascent Kingdom of Dale for a while now and there are a number of posts with various notions about population, settlement and 'the Dorwinrim'.

You do have a nice analogy there with Alfred the Great. He would never see Wessex reunited with the lands under Danish control, in the same way that it will be Bard's descendants who will achieve his ambition.

I think there should be a sizeable riverside settlement every four or five hexes(roughly) on the River Running from the point where it exits Mirkwood. This was a major trade route and although it's not so much in the current timeframe, the fortified trading posts would have formed the strongpoints around which the refugee communities would have huddled, after Smaug sacked Dale.

This next bit is conjecture. Given the close relations between Dale and the Dwarfs, I think it is likely that some Northmen travelled east with them when they relocated to the Iron Hills. The of the Iron Hills makes the old trade route to Dorwinion rather circuitous and I reckon that it's reasonable to postulate that the Dwarfs would fund the setting up of their own trading posts on the Redwater and populate them with their mannish allies.
I reckon that two sizable settlements is not unreasonable and this might explain why Brand chose to contest the crossings of the Redwater instead of fighing Sauron's forces a bit closer to home.

Finally, according to the Hobbit, men came from the south and 'west' to repopulate Dale. This would suggest that numbers of Dalefolk fled through the narrows into the upper vales of the Anduin. Perhaps one or two sizable settlements in this region?

Add 'gravewatch', Laketown and Dale. Assume an average population of 500 per settlement and you get an urban population of perhaps 5000 people. There would be a dispersed rural population as well of probably several times that number.

I have considered how these settlements would be named as well. Take the two we know, Laketown and Dale. Plain English and descriptive. Town on a lake= Laketown.

Grave watch works under this, but perhaps Moundwatch might be more in keeping?

Other ideas are Middleford, Ironhold, Shieldwall, Traderstown........

I was wondering about that myself whilst I was writing one of my Barding background ideas.

I was thinking there must have been at least a loose collection of steadings in the upper vales of Anduin during that period.

These would also be a likely source of those who would become the Beornings (along with Woodmen).

Although they would be rather close to Gundabad.

Hmmm.

My thoughts also, Poosticks. Some return to Dale to become Bardings and those that remain become Beornings(along with a fair number of Woodmen from the more northerly clans).

I considered at first that they might have resettled Framsburg, but then that is quite close to Gundabad.

One note of caution. You are completely ignoring the fact that Wilderland is settled by more than just Northmen derived cultures. Particularly still existing Northman derived cultures.

The Northmen forebears returned to Wilderland after the War of Wrath and settled there. Absolutely nothing says that upon their arrival they found lands that were totally and completely devoid of any sentient settlers excluding elves and dwarves.

We know of at least one other group of settlers in the area, the proto-Hobbits - called the River Folk (People?), I believe - whose most famous member is Smeagol (eventually, Gollum). Even if ultimately Hobbits are a sub-culture of Man and eventually breed into that race, they did not exist in a vacuum.

There were other cultures migrating westward, pushing the River Folk. While various unknown events, battles, Sauronic influence, etc would cause alternate routes and/or complete changes of destination, there was still a substantial ingress of cultures. None of which are accounted for. None of which seemed to have left any sign of their existence or passing.

The diaspora of humanity through out the real world is a tale too large for my complete understanding. But as I understand it, the original 10,000 Edain settlers in Beleriand is just sufficient to represent a viable species as far as the prevention of inbreeding and negative genetic markers. However, we know these 10k Edain do not represent all of Mankind in Middle-earth. Tolkien states that only a small portion of Man moves westward to meet the Firstborn / Valar due to the lies of the Enemy. However the abandonment of these lands would create a vacuum, which some other culture would move into, and constantly siphon cultures westward as empty lands are continually encountered.

So where are they? Granted, a very large number might not have left the area immediately near to their Awakening. Also granted is that some may have moved eastward as Cuivenen was near, but not specifically on, the eastern coast. There are also a large number who would have moved southward due to Sauron's influence (not to mention we've got a continent to settle down there). Despite their and Tolkien's directional people's epithetical naming (assuming that is even a word, but I think you understand the gist), there had to be various non-evil cultures that existed in any direction. All that we know for sure about Man in Middle-earth is that the Edain are the greatest / most advanced.

Yet there should be some sign of alternate cultures. Particularly dead cultures. Peoples that lived for a time, made some small impact on the world and then died out, leaving archeological tidbits as well as the odd magical artifact.

None of that is represented here and it really should be.



On a completely unrelated note, wouldn't any such name basically mean the equivalent of Fancy Version: Necropolis, Vernacular: Deadtown? Wouldn't it make more sense for some kind of euphemistic name to be used? Like: Resting (Ress-in), Stone Inn (phonetic drift: Stone-en, Ston-en, Sto-ninn), Kingshill (Kin-shil), The Torgue of Kings (because the mounds of the dead are torgue shaped around the settlement)? IDK, just mental meanderings.

Garn, all of that is absolutely true but, for my part, I am only really looking at the people of the Kingdom of Dale in the here and now(circa 2946TA).
There is a reference(somewhere) to the Dwarves returning to the Lonely Mountain and how the Northmen between the Redwater and the Running were able to deal with their Easterling problem. Given the timeline, this could indicate raids by the later Balchoth but, I prefer to use this as an opportunity to introduce a steppe warrior styled Easterling culture. (The evidence points to the fact that neither the Wainriders nor the Balchoth were mounted cultures)
Once again though, these and the folk of Dorwinion fall on the peripheries of my main area of interest as these 'huns' live beyond the Redwater.

I confess that I'm vastly simplifying/altering for my own purposes.

I wanted to play up the theme of men civilising when moving West, so my theory is that the men who originally formed Dale moved in from the East and weren't much better then the Easterlings of today - indeed, this came as a nasty shock as the players explored the burials grounds and the deeds of the Kings changed from things like "builder of bridges" to "collector of skulls".

This also feeds back to my Alfred theme - the Anglo Saxons were invaders themselves who built Kingdoms, so when the Vikings invade it is very much history repeating.

Mark

p.s. Good point on "Gravewatch" being a more intricate name than "laketown". I think my justificaiton would be that the town was founded to guard the burialgrounds rather than growing up afterwards.

Sorry pathstrider, but I said that I think that grave watch fits well with my thoughts on naming.I think you may have misunderstood me. The name is in plain English and is descriptive (although I think that Moundwatch is a bit more evocative).

Garn, I get what you say about the 10,000 Edain. The problem is that Tolken doesn't seem to have left any clues regarding non edainic human cultures in the area, except for my earlier pst about Easterling difficulties. Is there anything that says that these 10,000 represented the Edain in their entirety?
Did the descendants of those original Edain not become the Numenoreans/Dunedain? That suggests to me that there were probably more,related, Edainic people's who did not enter Beleriand(our current Northmen).
iIRC, There are a few places where it is discussed that certain Northman groups are related to various of the houses of the Edain. I can't actually remember if it is stated categorically that any of them are actually descended from the original three houses though.

(Ok, this is kind of a jumbled answer as every time I re-read it, I feel I should change the subject order around again and again. Particularly as a definition of terms is required to make sure we're talking about the same things. So my apologies if this is not as coherent as the prior post.)

Ultimately my previous post was about considering, creating and using non-Northman derived cultures, good or evil, within Wilderland in whatever fashion works best for your campaign. Tolkien does not provide any such good culture in Wilderland (and very few anywhere else); the evil examples are already well known to us, Gray or Middle Men: Dunlendings, and Dark Men: Easterlings (Balchoth, Wainriders), Southrons (Haradrim, Umbar - including corsairs, Khand). [I use a stricter Elvish-type division of Men. Specifically, how far west did they go? If on the road to Beleriand but don't arrive, you're Gray. Never tried for Beleriand or in service to Morgoth/Sauron, you're Dark. BTW, Black Numenorian are excluded from the above listing as they're based on the Edain (Light Men).]

The 10k Edain are pertinent simply because they represent the only specific numbers we're given. If 10k is a small number, it implies that some 90k+ Men are elsewhere, to my way of thinking, during the First Age. Despite these numbers (and the four millenia in which to breed), Tolkien only posits cultures that are either proto-Edain (rarely) or Edain in derivation in all of northwestern Middle-earth. There should be far more Gray and Dark Men cultures within Middle-earth (in it's entirety). While all of these missing cultures might be located outside of northwest Middle-earth, this answer seems contrived.

The Northmen were Edain (I always use the stricter definition - Men who fought against Morgoth in the First Age), who chose not to travel to Numenor. Choosing, instead, to head eastward beyond the Misty Mountains to establish realms of their own. These realms and cultures include: Dale/Esgaroth (Laketown) [which are assumed to be related cultures], Woodmen, Éothéod. (We have no idea about Beorn's personal origins, but his people are likely of Northman descent.) Some wikis suggest that the proto-Edain (those Gray Men who intended to go to Beleriand, but stopped along the way, never arriving there) living in Wilderland are merged by Tolkien into the Northman culture. Whether or not this is true, it seems unlikely to me that any culture would completely forgo its heritage for another. Regardless, we are never given any numbers for the Northmen, leaving Beleriand or arriving in Wilderland. Nor anything about their groups or settlement patterns that would eventually lead to the known cultures and established towns within Wilderland.


Pathstrider,
The idea that a culture became more civilized over time makes sense, as that is generally what happens. So the idea of a "collector of skulls" is fine. Although applied to the men of Dale it is somewhat incorrect as they're Northman based.

You can easily account for this though. The Northmen came through this area twice. The first time as proto-Edain with some groups splintering off, never arriving in Beleriand. The remainder move on eventually arriving in Beleriand and becoming the Edain, who upon their return to Wilderland are called the Northmen. They could have found these similar cultures and absorbed them (time with the Elves would make the Northmen more knowledgeable and skilled). So the "collector of skulls" may have been one of the earliest proto-Edain arriving in the area.

And yes, I do see the anachronism of saying this culture was absorbed but denying that all other cultures in the area were willing to be absorbed. All I can say is 1 vs All is a big difference.

Easterling raiders were a major threat in the One Ring campaign I ran last autumn. You can see the stats I used for them here: http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...&showtopic=2508

Cheers

vs

Thanks Voidstate! Interesting to see your ideas - did they work out ok as adverseries to your players?

I ran a session on Tuesday with three raiders vs my player character party of three.... and the players pretty much walked them. I thought it was going ok as two of the players managed to roll Saurons and get lassoed but the raiders didn't last long enough to take advantage of it!

My next encounter is going to have more raiders, so that may make a difference. My other option is to twist the rules a little to turn the "fight" into a series of opening salvos if the characters can't keep up with the raiders.

Mark

Pathstrider,
Mind telling me what the Total XP of each character is? And how many Fellowship Phases they've completed where they spent AP/XP to improve their characters? (This data would help with my efforts in the Combat Construction topic.)

They're in their first year still, so starting characters.

They all seem to have managed to get a relatively high parry rating (6-9), that seemed to be making a real difference.

Mark

Thanks for the information. Hopefully, if I can get more combat examples, with the extra data I can build a more accurate comparison model.

I also appreciate the tip about them having a high Parry and it's impact in combat. Right now Parry is not part of my equations.