Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Good one-off adventure?

Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:39 pm Holder slave raids, weak Olman, etc.

I really don't care for the portrayal of the Holders as brutal, slavetaking conquistadors in the SB book. They do not [or should not] have the advantages that the Europeans had over the natives in the New World.

Weaponry- No guns, and the jungle isn't a place where you want to spend long hours wearing heavy armor. The protection is traded off for fatigue, heat exhuastion, and extra maintainence of equipment. Not wearing full armor leaves one open to posion blowguns, and the like. An atl-atl javelin might still be dangerous to an armored man.

Disease- What? Amedio and Hepmonaland are pretty close to the Flanaess and seem to have had a fair bit of back and forth intercourse, even migrations of peoples. I find it hard to believe there wasn't more overlap in the diesease pools. Besides, what about clerics? It just seems unlikely that there will be a big smallpox type die off
[b]
Tactics[/b]- The natives may not have as many professional soldiers, but they are presumably adept at jungle fighting. They ought to do a little better against both the Holders and the SB.

As for magic - both sides have magic, so no clear advantage there.

Why can't the Holders just trade peacefully for most of their slaves? The Amedians and Olman spend a good amount of time fighting between cities and tribes- I'm sure there are plenty of captives that can be sold into slavery.With so few real advantages , large scale raiding and conquest of the jungles seems too risky to be worth it.

Heck, the Holders may even justify the whole thing like this: ''We buy slaves the Olman might otherwise sacrfice and the Amedians would eat- how is that bad?''

Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:57 pm

Actually even using tSb your idea has merit.

Holders pre-conqest for all of their conquistador bluster never penetrated deep within the jungles and their "settlements consisted of coastal trading forts. While the holders would have generally better weapons and at least within the coastal forts heavier armour their main advantage was the fractured nature of the natives.

There is no reason the holders couldn't manipulate the local tribal political situation to their advantage to acquire slaves and goods. In fact prewar the holders were unaware the SB were within the jungle interior rallying the jungle suel tribes.