The city-state of Myork is filled with military academies where knights and vators are trained to fill out Myork’s massive army. But like all schools, these do not only teach the subject matter they are intended to teach; they also teach propaganda.
Myork sees
itself as the only bastion of civilization in an incredibly dangerous
world. To be fair, they have a forest of
elves to their north who would like nothing better than to have the forests
retake the stone cities and endless farmlands.
They also have mountains and hills literally filled with dragons of
nearly every type. Too far to the east
and you run into the world’s largest desert, an endless wasteland of sand and
dehydration. So seeing the world as a dangerous
place might be the intelligent reaction here.
But they also
see the other continent as a dangerous place, a place where freedoms are not
matched with an endless vigilance. In
Myork, they know that freedom is not free and must be protected at all cost
from tyrants and criminals. One minor
problem is that they assume everyone on the other continent is a criminal.
So the military
men (and women) graduating from these academies are ready to fight, and quick
to find enemies. They think nothing of
advancing on a Latvich troop and attacking them simply because the Lats might
be across a border that has been undefended for generations. After all, in Myork, laws are obeyed, so that
is the way life should be everywhere.
The fact that some country on the other continent cannot guard their
borders doesn’t mean that the Lats get to expand, not when the Myork military
is around.
Is the Myork
army a force for “good”? Well, yes. They are at least a force for “law”, but the
law as they see it. Diplomats from all
eras know that there are times when fighting is necessary, but that laws and
treaties sometimes bend to the practical conditions of the times. The soldiers of Myork don’t see it that
way. They won’t throw their lives away
needlessly, but they don’t see how right and wrong can have grey areas. Dragons flying over farmlands need to be
slain before they can feed on innocent women and children. There is no question about that. Similarly, “evil” troops must be stopped
before they enslave the weak. Their
reasoning is actually pretty sound, but too often it may be impractical for
those without their strong sense of justice.
What do the
military academies of your game world teach?
Posts
This definitely made me want to make a John McCain general / instructor at the Myork military academy ;-). Perfect NPC to get the PCs into some tricky moral quandaries concerning 'pre-emptive work'
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity, as an example of building a NPC, how would you go about building a LegendQuest General McCain? How would you go about determining his skills and attributes?
ReplyDeleteDid you ever type an email and then wonder why you didn’t get a response, only to realize you typed it but never hit ? Yeah - sorry to take so long to respond!
ReplyDeleteFirst off - I don’t pretend to know the true skills that a fighter pilot would need to have. If you look at the modern rules in the option rules section of the Omnibus book, you’ll see some oversimplifications when it comes to things like that - one skill for flying and one skill for fixing.
One point I would like to make on what attributes a true aged warrior would have: There are rules in LQ for practicing to keep yourself sharp. I have an incredible amount of respect for Sen. McCain and what he endured as a POW, but I don’t think he is in the same shape today that he was when he was active in the military. This means that while he may have paid the character points for a Strength 6 and an Agility 7 (maybe 8), he won’t have those Attributes today. Theoretically he could train back up to those levels without it costing him any character points, but I think any GM would be smart enough to argue that folks of his age are unlikely to train their Agility for two hours a day (128 minutes = character points to get an 8 Agility).
Skills however never go away without something “not normal” happening. What can take skill levels? mental disease or some currently optional mentalism effects. So he could still fly his old plane, but his reflexes would simply not be at the same level.
I'm thinking tactics too; General McCain seems like a guy who recognizes a threat, almost instinctively. Maybe this is a part of Diplomacy / or intimidation, sense evil?
ReplyDeleteHe's definitely the old instructor that would instill the values of a proper officer into cadets. Maybe even lead a faction of Griffin riders. He'd be legendary, and have pushed in politics, the Senate going to him for advice but not wanting to take his advice because of the expense and difficulty in pursuading the public of preemptive strike so.
That's why I'm thinking he'd make a great patron to adventurers!
Yeah, I think old officers like him would still have a serious attack, even if it dwindled fast after a strike or two. I'm thinking a defense bonus added to attack. You know how the old guard leader (trope) usually sacrifices himself to give the newbies time to get away by taking on ten men? That'd be McCain's last stand kind of thing. Will bonus to hit points, just because he's a stubborn sod and can put himself right back to his pow mindset and take the pain and keep going.