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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 10:34:06
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In Elminster's ecologies, it is stated that roughly 7.000 goblins are estimated to be living in the goblin marshes and stonelands together, mostly spread in small groups, few larger than a small warband of 40-70 individuals.
Now, as it is stated everywhere that Cormyr, with a large standing army and the warwizrds ready, never managed to tame the land.
Also it says, that several kinds of other speices dwell there, but not in any big numbers.
the Zhents and the occasional Drow are also mentioned repeatedly in canon.
Also, the rough terrain etc.
But with the presence of Gems, Ores and the likes as natural ressources, and the close proximity of Cormyr especially castle High Horn and Tilverton, the country should be tamable by a nation of the size of Cormyr.
Or am I missing out something here?
There has been a discussion about this in a topic from 2006 ( in search option found ) where also ed gives advice, but it makes it just the more obvious that small groups of well trained individuals could clear the countryside fairly well, and build a stronghold or something similar....
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 11:23:46
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clear so far, thx.
But the stonelands are not a matter for the last decade only, this is ongoing for a much longer time, when cormyr had not to face such imminent threads and would have had the spare ressources very well.
Also, if there canbe a population of over 10.000 huamoinds being fed, there must be an option for a civlized race to do it.
well I am in some way"fanatic" about these themes, and especially with the Goblinoid races in there.
in my realms, the stonelands are heavily besieged by the church of bahamut these times.
There is an article on candlekeep about the chruch, where they report a massive move of the chruch into this area.
for Dragons the area seems fitting, since the terrain supports many lairing opportunities, difficult to reach and easy to hide.
But with the force described in the article, the stonelands will soon fall to the chruch of bahamut.
it was mentioned that a unit of 20 half dragon paladins riding spiked felldrakes rode into the stonelands just in 1373.
this force alone is a frightening one.
They have now started to clean out the stonelands of all foreign influence.
As you said, the Zhents on their side are trying to muster an army of humanoids to prevent this, and also try to bribe several chromatics to join the fight, but with the recent happenings in cormyr I see the humanoid population of the stonelands cut down drastically, which leaves a lot of room for development... |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 11:33:00
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A large campaign to butcher the humanoids would most likely fail, the terrain in itself, combined with the goblinoids local knowledge and probable guerilla tactics would make it a huge task, with enormous logistic problems for an army that has to spread out over a large area. In addition, the inhabitants would most likely draw back to the Underdark, the borders of Anauroch or even worse for Cormyr, hide in the mountain chains and maybe become an even bigger problem.
As for a small group of trained individuals. This sounds a bit to much like modern commando's for me to see it as part of a medieval warfare. If you are thinking about adventurers, these would be far to few to be able to do serious damage. The Goblinoids knows the land in and out, have scouts that gives alarms, can easily place ambushes everywhere. It should actually be a problem for even a mid-level group to destroy even a band of kobolts if these are fighting defensively on their own ground. |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 11:37:47
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Also a good point, a big army would not do , this for sure. Otherwise cormyr had marched in long before.
The church of bahamut is an option though, which could really shake the region.
I bet many of the humanoids would rather resettle than to live in the hunting grounds of even the younger Dragons.
Guerilla warfare etc is for sure a nasty thing to counter, but dragons seem superior to this, with all the options at their hands.
The article about the church of Bahamut moving into the stonelands, is this sourced by any official stuff or just canon? |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 11:51:07
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quote:
Originally posted by Jakuta Khan
Also a good point, a big army would not do , this for sure. Otherwise cormyr had marched in long before.
The church of bahamut is an option though, which could really shake the region.
I bet many of the humanoids would rather resettle than to live in the hunting grounds of even the younger Dragons.
Guerilla warfare etc is for sure a nasty thing to counter, but dragons seem superior to this, with all the options at their hands.
The article about the church of Bahamut moving into the stonelands, is this sourced by any official stuff or just canon?
The advantage of the dragons would depend on the terrain and how easily it would be for the goblinoids to hide. And if there was enough food in the local Underdark to not make it necessary to hunt above ground much, then there wouldn't be that many possibilities for the dragons to catch them in the open. In addition the dragons would catch the attention of Cormyr and various adventurers, giving them enough to worry about. It is far more difficult for a dragon to hide than it is for a group of goblins and there is always the stories about the dragons treasures to lure people. And with the easy hunting that could be done in Cormyr most of the dragons would probably prefer those areas as their hunting grounds, forcing Cormyr to hire adventurers and to send war wizards.
As for lore about the church of Bahamut; not that I know of, but I am the wrong person to answer. |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 13:39:10
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The article came from "Dargoth"
http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/bahamut.htm
and it states in the explaination that he implemented Draconomicon into the relams, so far for this.
So, as I understand it, Stonelands is not worth taming, but if any significant threat comes out of it, the purple knights ride into it and solve it with ease.
The Image you keep putting up here is something like "the hills have eyes" a bit far dragged I agree, but similar to this it could be.
Almost impossible to completely drive out specimens there, for the inhospitable terrain and the vast underground mining complexes.
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 14:20:26
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capnvan,
I do do know the difficulties with this, mainly I think at least.
And also, it is clear that in "your" realms everybody is pretty free of doing whatever he wants it to be.
I am still increasingly interested in the canon and the upspringing discussions when you share common thoughts or experiences out of your P&P gaming surrounding with a large community as this is.
Maybe it is even just for the sake of an interesting discussion with like-minded people.
The main reason why I always keep the themes based aroung goblinoid areas of interest ot things is, that IMHO these creatures are also underestimated a lot in general in the realms.
Orcs regularly form huge hordes and even empires, despite their chaotic nature, whereas the goblinoid race ( especially the Hobgoblins ) are mentioned almost never in these kind of themes.
Given their extremely high fertility, the undestanding of hierarchy and military tactics and all the other information we get about them, it is quite surprising that they do not burst forth out of their homelands every decade as well, witht the difference, that a horde or better said army of 10k+ hobgoblins would be much harder to push back.
This leads me back to the stonelands issue, where the golbinoid races have been since ages, but not managed to rise up after the fall of their old kingdom.
Feeding and all other things should not be the issue, as we have seen already, that the feeding theme canbe solved with underdark mushroom farms and all kinds of unusual food sources pretty easy.
for me it seems that also the original creators and authors of the realms never consider the hobgoblins as a threat as serious as orcs or ther humanoids. Even the ogres have more attention in the core realms products.
Jesus, I will found the "RightsOfGoblinoidPeopleOfFaerun" association soon I think.
And frankly spoken, after reading my posts of the last days here, I start feeling a bit freaky, too. |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 16:32:40
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The rivalry between the various tribes keeps the population down, as does the larger monsters of the area. A tradition of raiding into Cormyr would also deplete their numbers. That is one of the reasons why the Zenthish activity in the area is of worry for Cormyr. If the goblinoids turned their collective force upon northern Cormyr they could be a problem, especially if they took some time to build up their forces.
And to turn around everything I have said. It is not difficult to make it possible to conquer the region if that is what you want in a campaign. If there are a limited number of entrances to the Underdark (maybe with monsters hostile to goblinoids near)it would be possible for adventurers to sabotage the retreat of the goblinoids, also just say that the underground food supply is limited thereby forcing the goblinoids to be dependant on hunting above ground. And maybe the terrain, although difficult, is not broken enough for the hobgoblins and orcs to travel hidden. By supplying weapons to weaker tribes and proclaim bounties on some of the groups (for example the goblins and kobolts who would be the most difficult to drive out)it could be possible to get the humanoids to weaken themselves enough to make it possible to take over.
Being successful does of course create another problem for Cormyr. They don't have a nice, defined marsh region that holds back raiders and monsters from Anauroch. Most likely having the border pushed northwards will create an even more problematic situation than the limited area of the Marshes/Stonelands was.
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2010 : 17:59:51
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Jorkens, I like your approach here.
Of course everything can be made possible, this is why we love the realms ;)
I do agree with you here, if they let some petty adventurers build their barony there, they would have to deal directly with zhent and shadovar activity, and not cormyr even as they then could raise taxes from their new underlings....
What is your opinion on the general appearance of the Goblinoid races in the realms? As there is strong rivalry between the orcish tribes as well, this seems not to be the reason that they cannot seem to organize as the orcs can.
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Stonelands Population - Possible Spoiler
