It could also explain why beastmen tend to live in inhospitable areas. If they have a fixed income from land, and it’s higher than humans/demi-humans would earn from the same land, it becomes a losing proposition to attack the beastmen, since it drains resources from the realm and the value of the land declines when there are no longer beastmen running it.
THINKING OUT LOUD, BEASTMEN:
Statting up an example Beastman Barony. I’m finding that having a half-maximum population really hurts beasts.
Example Beastman Barony:
So, it costs 30,000 gp to build a stronghold to secure wilderness. As chaotic creatures, they have half the maximum population, so instead of 125 families, only 63 live there.
Let’s test Beastmen at a fixed land value of 5. That means each family will generate (5+2+4) times the number of families (63) for a total of 11*63=693 “gross” income (gross meaning before deductions)
Tithes and taxes take away 69.3 and 138.6, leaving 485.1. We also need a garrison of 4 gp per family, so that’s another 252 gp gone. We’re down to 233 gold. Festivals eat another 1.6 gp per family, so that’s another 100.8 gp gone, so now we’re down to 132.2 gp.
Finally, the beastman chief has to pay rent on his keep, another 150. He’s now losing 17.8 gold per month. This actually seems very reasonable; If he’s losing about 200 gold a year, that’s a strong incentive to raid; even a very small domain can yield several thousand gold, staving off bankruptcy for a few more years.
Other considerations: 252 gp to garrison a six-mile hex of beasts is a useful number. If we assume that every orc domain is at max population (I’m assuming here that orcs can’t “Civilize” a domain, so they’re always in Wilderness and capped at 63) always sends their full garrison when their master says it’s conquesting time (A warchief could simply give them a Gift worth 70gp for a +1 Favor to balance it out, which also serves to buy the warchief four months “rent” on his domain.)
This is a pretty low number though. I mean, a human baron could have double the population his six mile hex, and thus have to maintain double the garrison. He could even do it at a profit. We could assume that in times of conquest, orcs always raise their full militia and conscript value, safe in the knowledge that in a couple months their turbobreeding will have restored it.
That’s 18 extra orcs for the domain, 14 of whom can be heavy infantry. That’s 136 extra gold, for a total of 388 gp per orc domain.
I’ve got no idea how to factor cities in, or whether I want orcs to have urban developments the way humans do. I think I probably don’t.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that orcs generally occupy inhospitable areas like massive deserts or tundras, and the unsettled areas between civilizations, which means that while mile for mile humans can outdo them, they have many, many more miles. Essentially, if ACKS were set in Europe, the PCs would work on conquering the Roman empire, only to have issues when some dark lord manages to unite all of Siberia in a massive Waaaagh!
NOTE: I know that a domain can technically be larger than a 6 mile hex, and in fact, can grow up to a 24 mile hex, but by my reckoning, because of how everything scales, a 24 mile hex will be exactly like 16 smaller hexes, so there’s no reason to multiply everything by 16 and get sleepy this early in the day.
Beastmen domains don’t need to be profitable, just their neighbors’ domains.
To model beastmen domain gentrification, consider having some portion of pillaged loot as thralls, and have thresholds based on that where land value rises to 3/4 and then to full, representing a population of non-beastmen working the land.
Questions:
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Are treasure maps labelled? Do they say “To 16000 gold pieces and two magic items?” I feel like knowing that is important because a low-level party doesn’t want to find the monster guarding 16000 gold pieces.
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My players are interested in pulling in a higher-level character to help them deal with a lair that consumed one of their friends who he tried to solo adventure, and then two more PCs when they went on corpse-reclaiming expedition. I’m not sure how to handle this. I mean, by RAW, there’s like, a dozen Counts within a week’s ride, all of whom are at least level 8. It wouldn’t be hard to find people capable of clearing out a mummy lair, I’m just curious as to how other Judges would adjuncate this.
Would the high-level NPC be willing to leave his domain to adventure? Would he demand all the treasure? Or maybe he’d award henchman-sized cuts to the PCs? Would Clerics be willing to just do it as a service to their congregation?
I realize that the answer to this is 100% “Well it’d depend on the NPC” but in the absence of a specific, premade NPC, that means I have to decide what kind of guy they’re talking to, which means making all these decisions myself.
I say theyd definetly be willing to help and give us henchmen cuts. Oops did i say us i mean them 
- I’ve labeled a few as “has these (flowery descriptions of a magic item, or a named undetailed magic weapon), and enough money to live like a (king prince duke count) for (days weeks months years)” based on some divisor of daily living expenses from the Standard of Living Table and how much I feel like overselling the map.
So 16000GP might be ‘live like a prince for a month’ or ‘a baron for a year’.
- Hrm.
Well, the canny NPC, if the lair is in an area he may want to eventually expand into, would thank the PCs for the info, send them off, then go get it all himself later, and maybe drop them a note about any bodies found.
The NPC who may feel it’s his duty to do something about it once it’s made known may only pay the PCs as henchmen-of-henchmen, as not to ruffle feathers with his actual henchmen, depending on the level difference.
In either case, the recovery of the bodies should be the vast majority of the reward, if they’re actively looking for a higher-level NPC to escort them through the zone, to borrow MMO language, since this feels like an MMO sort of situation.
I usually obscure the treasure one degree; the map may indicate that it leads to the Forgotten Shrine of Saint “” The Unspeakable, and then if the players hit up a library or sage they can get a decent idea of what treasures were rumored to be lost at the site. This, of course, may tip their hand - if you’re asking questions about the contents of the Shrine, another party of adventurers may hear of it from a loose-lipped reference librarian… and then the race is on, in classic pulp fashion!
Might the high-level NPC have a number of slightly-less-high-but-still-sufficiently-high level henchmen who he could deploy as a party, with the PCs serving as their henchmen for the expedition? No sense risking the royal posterior over the requests of vagabonds unless you’ve yet to meet your monthly adventuring requirement for domain growth.
Quote: “No sense risking the royal posterior over the requests vagabonds…”
The quote of the day. I need to use this on my players someday.
So my players decided they wanted a keep, so they moved up to the abandoned keep on the map. It was an orc lair, naturally, and as an aboveground lair it had a ton of them.
They’re considering hiring a large number of mercs and treating it as a siege. Using D@WB rules for the battle itself should be straightforward, with the orcs naturally forming into battalion scale units. The question arises of how I should handle loot.
If I use D@WB rules for loot, then each orc will be carrying 6-9 GP and that’s that.
If I use ACKS rules for loot, then the orcs by themselves will be carrying no loot, but collectively, there’ll be roughly 2000 gp for every warband of 35ish (Or 57 gold per orc, plus their valuable, lootable ears.)
I’m leaning towards doing both, as each individual orc would carry something sellable on him, and then they’d have treasure at home. This’ll also help pad the loot pile so that when the PCs mercs claim half of it (as is their right as soldiers) there’ll still be plenty to go around. Community thoughts?
Personally, I would lean towards using ACKS rules for loot, as the orcs are at home and not being paid.
The D@W:B rules are based on wages, because that’s what the soldiers are being paid; they have the money because they were given it by the quartermaster. The ACKS rules, on the other hand, are based on what’s in the lair, which is where the money would be coming from in this case.
If the orc lair had mercenaries in addition to those who lived there, I’d have the mercenaries have D@W:B loot and those who lived there have the lair loot. (If, for example, they had hired a few ogres to guard the chieftain.)
If females fight as children, should they also form units during the siege?
As goblins, rather. I mean, they’re synonyms really.
Also, some quick math-
Each gang is 2d4 guys, average 5
Each warband is 2d6 gangs, average 7
Thus, each warband is about 35 orcs, plus champions and the subchieftan.
At platoon scale, that means that there’ll be roughly one subchief for every 30 orcs- enough for every infantry unit! That’s some surprisingly high-quality leadership for the Orcs, and could easily turn the tides in their favor, esp. if the PCs are struggling to find enough guys to be lieutenants all around.
:: As goblins, rather. I mean, they’re synonyms really.
Ha! Actual goblins aren’t so picky about what they eat…
Yes, it’s kinda nice that they provide their own leadership. It’s one of the few benefits of being a beastman.
Regarding the females; sure; as a goblin infantry unit. That’s actually quite the force multiplier, since they number the same as males.
One could also do the work to do a mixed unit of orcs/goblins if one had the inclination.
I think it makes more sense to have them as separate units- Saves on bookkeeping, and logistically the females are more valuable and less useful on the front lines, so they’ll probably be occupying the safer garrison positions.
Allow me, if I may, to plant a seed of idea for you: it might make sense for the orcs to keep the females back in the garrisons if orcs are trying to hold land. But I could imagine orcs are more likely to raid and “colonize” lands they assault, and thus would want to have their entire family unit present at the battle, the better to reside in the territory for as long as they please before overpopulating and bursting forth into new lands.
The family that raids together stays together.