Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I got started with writing online on the Spore forums. Man, those were the days. We're talking like 12 years ago 2010-ish!
I've been here on and off for almost as long, and have GM'd a bunch of different things to varying success.
The Firewind Desert, a treacherous place for some, a blessed land for others. However, putting aside the matter of one's allegiance, one fact about the desert that almost everyone agrees upon when asked is that, the desert gives out a feeling of timelessness when first gazed upon.
No matter how strong the winds howl, crashing onto the sand dunes and creating mighty sandstorms, no matter how scorching the rays of the sun are, forcing some of the weaker native to the desert creatures to live underground in a bid to not get burned to death or die from dehydration, the feeling that, no matter what happens, the desert will always remain the same is... quite something alright.
Luna experienced this feeling in its entireness during the first five days she traveled through the Firewind. However, the werewolf belatedly regretted her thoughtless decision to be mischievous and go against Ventus' words. She didn't regret that fact that she disobeyed Ventus, no, she regretted the fact that she didn't foresee that the desert would be such a boring place to travel in! During those five days, the only thing she'd ever seen has been sand, sand dunes, sand, and more sand dunes! Of course, there was the occasional sandstorm and dust devil to break the pace, but aside from that, nothing!
So, it is understandable that, when she finally came across a river of sorts, she would become ecstatic. She immediately dived into the cooling waters of the river. The sudden change in temperature sent a delightful shiver up her spine that made her hair stand on end.
"Ah yes, finally..." She sighed as she swam against the current. A few meters away, on the muddy banks of the river, the Sunderer was impaled into the ground, akin to a flagpole without a flag. Luna glanced at Ull'Yang's weapon from time to time as she swam, but didn't think about it much since there was basically nothing dangerous about the area. There was a forest one the other side of the river that piqued her interest, but Ventus' words echoed inside her mind, reminding her of 'the empire within the desert' he was the so-called protector of.
Little did Luna know, however, that while she bathed in the waters of the river, mind-boggling changes were occurring inside the pocket dimension of the Sunderer.
It had now been three days since Luna came across the river, and she had decided to follow it downstream.
In her travels through Cygnea, the werewolf had found out that one of the best ways of finding new prey was what she was doing at the moment. Oftentimes, there was a lake or even a sea at the end of the river, and the creatures living in the area near the river would most likely depend on it for survival and thus, gather in groups and graze the riverbanks.
Nevertheless, even with numbers on their side, the grazing animals were not entirely safe. Where prey gathers, the predators are quick to follow. Lurking in the depths of the river or behind the bushes and amongst trees, waiting for just the right moment to lunge at their prey.
Of course, even the tamest of Cygnean animals would be ferocious monsters in the eyes of Galbar's natives, but that did not matter in the grand scale of things.
At the moment, Luna was walking along the river, gazing at the sights around her. She had morphed the Sunderer into its previous earring shape and it was now resting on her left ear as usual.
"Huh, what is that?" Luna thought to herself, squinting her eyes and barely making out the faint silhouettes of houses in the distance. The desert heat distorted much of what she could see, but when she realized that she had stumbled upon civilization, her face broke into a smile.
It had been almost a week since she had spoken to someone else, and she was eager to find out more about the rest of the inhabitants of Galbar. She'd had enough of the djinn for a while.
"Let's see now, If I remember correctly, there were quite a lot of intelligent races on Galbar. Master mentioned two, though, that he reckoned dealt the most with his siblings, humans of flesh and blood, and the hain, a bird-like species. I wonder which one of those resides in this damn desert..."
As Luna raced the distance to the village, she found herself able to discern more things about it. "Hmm, i-is that clay the houses are made of? How do they make it stand like that and not crumble?!" Luna was surprised by the sheer ingenuity of the desert folk. Truthfully, her master barely bothered with building any structure of sorts back in Cygnea, the only exception being the Reverse Mountain, and calling that a structure was pushing it. Thus, Luna had quite a low bar when it came to appraising architecture, and basically, anything that had four walls and a roof was a palace to her eyes.
By the riverside there walked a young man. He trod with a walking stick in one hand and pouch in the other, his back to the village as he ventured away from that tiny realm of man and into nature's dominion. He was a shaman, and he was seeking audience with the local water spirits. Within that small pouch of his were powdered herbs and small nuggets of gold; when sprinkled into the Mah'd sacred waters, such offerings gathered the attention of the djinn within.
When he was quite a distance away from his village, the shaman, at last, came to a stop. He opened his pouch and began to make his offering, speaking the words that he had been taught. He watched as the powders fell into the waters and were swept away by the current, the nuggets falling into the mud untouched. That was most unusual; the flustered shaman stood there dumbly, wondering if the local spirit had rejected his offering or else had ventured away from its usual home. Either way, the shaman could only speculate why. His face grew into one of confusion and his thoughts became as muddied as those gleaming specks of gold that he had dropped.
After much delay, the river finally appeared to answer the shaman.
First there was only an inconspicuous ripple, but then a tiny humanoid form emerged from the water.
"Where were you?" he demanded.
She haughtily crossed her arms upon hearing his tone. "Here, there, somewhere else," the elemental crooned back with a laugh, its face twisting into a mockery of the anger that was painted upon his own.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm; the water was volatile and prone to fits of emotion. One had to remain calm so as to not excite it.
More level, he tried again, "I did not mean to be rude, dear Flo. I only wondered why you did not come sooner."
"I was talking to my friends further upriver. They brought me to look at some strange, furry beast walking by the shore," Flo sang. Fortunately, she was acting more cooperatively now; there had been days before where no amount of apologies could appease her once she had taken offense to something that he had said. She giggled a spray of mist, then suddenly looked bored. "But what did you want from me? Watering your village's fields again?"
The shaman blinked. "Nevermind what I came for," he said, "tell me of this beast that comes!"
As Luna approached the village near the river, she started passing by fields filled with all sorts of peculiar plants, plants she could only assume were vegetables or herbs since the fields were so close to the village.
"Seems like these desert people are quite advanced when it comes to finding food. I believe these are called 'crops'?" Luna had never bothered to grow any plants since all she ate was meat, thus it was understandable that she didn't know much about agriculture. What she knew came from Ull'Yang, and even he didn't know much about it since he didn't even bother learning anything about it.
Like that, Luna set a fairly swift walking pace as she traversed the riverside, and soon she arrived at the village.
She set her eyes upon the houses and was greatly surprised to see that the clay from which they were made was not as simple as it looked from a distance. It did not seem as frail and brittle-looking as the clay she was used to seeing. "Interesting..." she murmured as she stepped further inwards.
Luna walked for a couple of minutes, gazing at the buildings around her with awe, but after some time she noticed something particular. The village seemed to be empty.
"I would not be so unlucky so as to have found myself in an abandoned village, right?" She asked herself. "Of course not," came the answer to her question.
"The fields from before were perfectly fine, and the houses seem to not have been ransacked to the ground, so this village doesn't seem to have been attacked by bandits..."
Although she found her latter thought quite impossible; would bandits even deign attack such a small village? What's there to gain from it? So, she immediately discarded the thought.
As she was trying to guess what had happened to the village, she noticed movement with the corner of her eye. Her ears perked up, trying to pick up any sound as she turned around swiftly towards a house. There on the window of the house, a small head full of black hair stood out of place, its eyes peering straight at Luna with a curious look. When the person realized they had been discovered, the head quickly disappeared from Luna's view.
"Oh~" Luna was surprised. It seemed that the people of this village had not abandoned it after all.
"The beast is here!" the shaman's piercing voice cried out, and then at least a dozen men sprung out of hiding places. In the blink of an eye, they had encircled her. With a triumphant cry, they brandished their spears, bows, and nets.
Luna winced at the sudden noise piercing her sensitive ears and showed a shocked expression when the humans surrounded her in a flash, weapons in hand and ready to attack her.
"Woah-woah-woah, easy there humans," Luna said hurriedly. However, once she took a second to see her 'enemies', she relaxed somewhat.
The way the villagers brandished their weapons said a lot about their fighting skills, and in her eyes, the villagers seemed a little more experienced than a toddler waving around a wooden stick. Nevertheless, she didn't want to kill these people as it would have no meaning even if she did. Who would care about a bunch of villagers?
Thus, she decided that communicating with them would yield the best results. She could feel, no, smell the fear intermingled with curiosity in their gazes and that set her more... bestial instincts reeling, yet she reigned herself in.
"I come in peace," she eventually declared and raised her hands above her head.
The locals steeled themselves as a series of growls and strange noises came from the beast's maw. Then when it raised its claws in preparation to strike, they too readied their weapons and inched closer.
"What is it doing, shaman?" one man cried out.
"I do not know, but surely it is the work of Y'Vahn, and so it be our duty to smite it in the Master's name," came an answer.
Throughout the whole conversation, all their eyes remained trained upon Luna. All was tense, but then there was a noise from the side. All eyes darted to it: a pail of water had fallen over and spilled its contents, yet rather than seeping into the earth, the puddle of water writhed as if living and rolled over the ground to appear in the middle of the commotion.
In a shower of mist, Flo exploded upwards from that puddle on the ground.
"Oh for the love of Ull'Yang, not another djinn..." Luna thought.
Ignoring the villagers and their useless weapons, Flo sang to Luna in the language of gods, "You can speak?! And here I told them that you were only a beast!" She erupted into a fit of laughter that sprayed, even more, mist over the (now thoroughly bewildered) villagers and Luna.
"They can't understand a word that you're saying!" she managed to explain before erupting into another fit of laughter. Whereas the villagers looked at Luna in fear, Flo seemed to think that the werewolf was nothing but hysterical.
Through the whole event, Luna retained a deadpan expression, yet if Ull'Yang were there to see her, he would know how ticked off she was at that moment. "Everywhere I go, there are damn djinn following me!!" She shouted inwardly in frustration.
"Ye-" Luna tried to reply before she was promptly covered in djinn spittle. She wiped her face with her hand before continuing. "Yes, I can talk. Of course, I can talk. I'm more surprised by what you said though about them," she told the djinn while pointing at the villagers.
"They can't speak the common language of all creatures?" she asked.
"We speak the language of gods and djinn, but you aren't a god and you most certainly aren't a djinni! What might you be?" Flo giggled. She rolled forward across the ground like the surf rolled over the sand of a beach, advancing until she was practically on top of Luna. She started to poke the wolf with a watery finger.
"What language of gods? Do you mean to tell me that these humans speak a different language?" Luna asked the djinn. "And hey, stop poking me!" she added.
Blissfully ignoring Luna, Flo's icy cold waters seemed to run over the wolf's body and almost seep into it. "Well at least you weren't made by Jvan!" she declared. The humans remained on guard throughout the whole strange conversation, though now they seemed more confused than afraid.
Once the water djinn had retracted itself from Luna, she was left standing there soaking wet. She looked at the djinn, then back at herself, and sighed before her eyes flashed with a golden color. Instantly, the area immediately surrounding her increased in temperature, and the water on her body vaporized.
"Now that's out of the way," she turned to the water djinn once more. "Yes, Jvan's not my maker. Ull'Yang is. However, you have not answered my question, djinn. Why can't they speak our language? Don't all creatures speak this language?" she asked again.
Flo spun to face the shaman and called out to him, "It turns out that the beast can talk! She's a little bit crude, but at least she wasn't sent by Jvan!"
Rather than in the language of gods, Flo communicated to the shaman in the bastardized dialect of watery elementals; each syllable was like a raindrop in one mighty storm of speech, but it was nonetheless somewhat recognizable. The carefree Flo hardly seemed to mind if Luna overheard her comments, though.
"HEY! Who are you calling crude?!" Luna burst in a fit of rage. She could tolerate the djinn's quirks up to a point, but calling her crude was pushing it a tad too far. "But of course, a djinn's worth is proportional to the size of its mouth, that's a true and tested fact..." she said dismissively.
In outright mockery of Luna, Flo twisted around and then inflated the size of her amorphous head to the point of absurdity. She started loudly singed some gibberish with her newfound giant mouth, then finished off the performance by spraying water at Luna and giggling. "You seem irritable!" she exclaimed, "Maybe you should talk to one of those dust devils out there if you think I'm abrasive!"
Luna started at the djinn dumbfoundedly, before vaporizing the water once more. "Has all this time of staying in the river turned what little brain you have into muddy water, djinn? What dust devils? Sand doesn't ta-"
Luna stopped abruptly and peered at the giggling djinn with a conflicted look. "Do you mean to tell me I'VE BEEN WATCHED ALL ALONG?!"
Luna burst into a fit of rage once more, this time angry at Ventus for daring to spy on her again. "That damn Ventus's gonna get it the next time I see him..." she thought as she tried to calm down. "Look, just tell me why they can't understand our language. Isn't what I'm asking simple??" she told the djinn as calm as she could.
"Silly questions get silly answers! Why does the wind blow sand all over the place? Because the skylords are stupid! Why do only the shamans speak like djinn? Because humans are stupid! Why does this wolf-thing keep asking me silly questions? Hmmm..." By the end, Flo acted as if she was contemplating the answer to that final question much harder than was necessary.
Luna looked at the djinn with a serious look on her face, yet a slight twitch over her left eye could be observed if one looked hard enough. She realized that the djinn was not going to cooperate, and thus turned her attention towards the human the djinn had talked to previously.
"I guess this is the shaman the djinn mentioned..." With that thought in mind, Luna bolted towards the man, swiftly passing by all the armed villagers before they could even react to her leaving her previous location. In one second, she appeared by the shaman and placed her pawed hand on his forehead, imitating what Ull'Yang had done to her before leaving for Chronos.
In that instant, myriads of sentiments flowed from Luna to the shaman that described how she was not there to harm anyone and that she simply sought directions towards the desert empire. The process lacked Ull'Yang's finesse but nevertheless got her point across.
Transfixed by the strange interaction, the shaman had nonetheless communicated to the others what Flo had told him: that this creature was no Jvanic monster, that it could speak and seemed to have a mind. So though they kept hold of their weapons, the men had relaxed.
In a moment that changed as she fell upon their shaman in a blur; upon her touch, his muscles spasmed and his eyes grew gaping wide and white. As if in some coma or shock he fell and writhed on the ground from whatever she had done, and so the vengeful villagers roared and advanced forward. Flo watched in... bemusement?
After a few moments, the shaman's eyes returned to normal and he raised a hand at the last instant before a fight broke out. "Do not fight," he commanded, and though the shaman was no lord they nonetheless held him in enough respect to heed those words.
Flo then asked the questions that the humans could not, "So who are you and what are you doing here? I've told you some things so now you tell me some things!"
Luna looked at the villagers as they reigned in their attack, and turned back to the djinn with a smile on her face.
"Silly questions get silly answers! Why does the wind blow sand all over the place? Because the skylords are stupid! Why do only the shamans speak like djinn? Because humans are stupid! Why does this puddle of water want to know why I'm here? Hmm..." Luna mocked the djinn as she recounted its words, a thoughtful expression growing upon her face as she thought about the ending to that last sentence.
Flo shot a jet of water at Luna. This time she aimed for the eyes and put some force behind it, giggling all the while.
Unfortunately for Flo, the werewolf was prepared this time. The water jet was blocked by a shield of heat, vaporizing the water into steam. All the while, Luna's face retained a sneer.
Some of the frigid spray fell upon the shaman as he remained sputtering on the ground and it seemed to help shake him back to his senses. Still groggy as if he had suffered a blow to the head, he nonetheless managed to speak, "The beast comes looking for an empire."
Flo retorted in that slippery language of the water, "Well it seems that the idiot has found it, but not without leaving a poor impression!"
Flo twisted her liquidated form to face back towards Luna. "Here you trespass upon great Zephyrion's demesne, a land guarded by we who are his children. 'tis a poor choice to try the patience of us, or the tribes of men that are here with his blessing and protection, or the king that rules in Zephyrion's name. Our Father suffers no interlopers, not even if they be gods themselves!"
And with that tirade, Flo crossed her arms and remembered the tale of Vulamera the Great Interloper, who had similarly trespassed in such rude manners only to be sent fleeing. Alas, perhaps this she-wolf would meet a similar fate.
Luna whistled in mock surprise. "This is all there is to this so called empire Ventus is guarding?" She said and gestured at the buildings of clay and brick surrounding her.
"I would be wholly disappointed if this is the case, and thus I still retain some semblance of hope."
"So I assume that If I continue following this river downstream, I will eventually find the capital of the empire?" Luna scratched her chin before asking the djinn.
Flo began again, "Silly questions get silly an-"
"Oh for gods' sake," Luna snapped angrily, turned around and walked away from the djinn and its companions. She had a rough understanding of her destination now, and would not subject herself to the whimsies of a random djinn anymore.
Content with driving away that nuisance, Flo returned to the Mahd's waters and thought nothing more of it. The villagers looked on with some combination of concern, confusion, and disdain. Ultimately they trusted in the message that the shaman had relayed from Flo: that the strange creature was not of Jvanic origin. So, in the end, they were content to do nothing and let her become some other village's problem. If she did make it so far as Vetros, surely the great city's mighty army would be able to deal with her if necessary.
A continuation of the A Wolf's ____ collabs. In this one:
Luna, having chosen to defy Ventus' command and venture into the Firewind Desert in search of an empire (Vetros), travels for a long time without seeing much
Unbeknownst to her, the seemingly desolate desert is teeming with djinn and she is being watched basically the entire time
As she follows the Mahd she finally approaches a small village on the outskirts of Vetruvian borders
A local shaman in that village communes with a river djinni to ask her to water the fields, but as he does so the djinni tells him of a "beast" that is heading towards the village
Luna arrives to a seemingly empty village and investigates
The locals, having been prepared for the "beast", spring out from hiding and surround her. They have weapons and nets. She is unable to communicate with the humans because she only speaks the language of gods
Flo, the water djinni of this part of the Mahd and the one that the shaman had been talking to earlier, pops out of a bucket where she had been hiding. It is revealed that the djinn speak some bastardized form of the language of the gods, and so she can communicate with Luna easily enough, and the shaman can in turn communicate with Flo. They at least establish that Luna the "Beast" is not a Jvanic abomination, so the humans relax some.
Flo is annoying as crap and Luna really doesn't like her
After trying to ask, Luna still isn't given directions to the rest of the empire (mainly the city of Vetros) and eventually leaves out of frustration
Flo goes back to her river and basically forgets about the whole ordeal, whereas the locals let Luna to go bother some other village. They're pretty sure that Vetros' army could stop her if she found the city, so they don't try to hinder her travels
I'm gonna have to side with Kho on this one, Lifprasil's entire mortal army caps out at 100,000 currently, with a soon-to-be division of 5,000 Cosmic Knights; meaning he has more than enough manpower to sling around a massive stick. In comparison, Rome had an army the size of 450,000 men at its peak, which is where I'm mostly drawing inspiration for Alefpria from.
EDIT: To emphasize, most of Lifprasil's army is currently on inactive duty, his active forces cap out at 30,000, most of which are going to be fielded in the Xerxes battle.
Well Rukbany is no Rome, and in any case Rome came much later than the 2300 B.C.E. period that we're talking about. I reiterate that I think Alefpria is the exception and that other places shouldn't hold it as a standard to conform to.
@Cyclone I disagree. A tribal nation should be able to muster up all its men, and even some of its women. They're nomadic people, they live to herd and fight, and when tribal honour is besmirched every warrior takes up arms.
Even assuming that all of them that are able to fight show up willing to do so, I still think 50% is too high. I know that women occasionally did go on long campaigns as combatants, but did children? Or the elderly? Or those too poor to afford to afford horses or weapons?
@Double Capybara You think that excessively low populations are more realistic than ones that are quite high?
In truth I'm not concerned about the general population nearly so much as I am about the army size. I honestly don't know what percentage of their people a nomadic tribe could realistically bring to battle, but even if we did allow for 200,000 or 300,000 Rukbans I would say that an army of 50,000 seems large. Especially given how nonchalantly the death of 11,000 is presented.
When I talked about 50% of the population fighting, that was the extreme, the highest number that I could even imagine. I think it's much more reasonable to have 20% or less of the population fighting. If we cut the army sizes in half, an army of 25,000 still implies well over 100,000 Rukbans just on Shaqmar's side.
Eh, so long as it's discussed OOC and not just slyly done, I think the taboo around IC edits is unwarranted.
I must have just glossed over the numbers as you wrote them then, because it's not like I only just now decided that 50,000 is too much. In fairness I agree that it's ridiculous that I somehow didn't notice the first time around, but nonetheless I'm at least contesting it now before the battle that brings them into play. (I'll add to this point on the chat box in our pad) It's given almost anecdotally in that paragraph you quote and could be easily changed without impacting the post as a whole or requiring extensive work to edit.
You dismissed a valid point and struck at something entirely different. The game is meant to be based on historical culture and civilisations and seeks to show the various advantages and disadvantages of the various forms of human organisation. I think in the particular context that I am using the game here, it is relevant. Beyond that, gameplay aspects are what players make of it - though I've personally never met any Satan worshippers or whatnot. What the hell kind of mods are you using? xDD
And nononononono Kho, you can't take a game that claims to have historical basis and cite it as your source. The gamey mechanics often cause the developers to...stretch reality.
Case in point:
You know, vikings had "dragon ships" that they sailed around in, but they never were badass enough to shoot Greek fire from the dragonheads on their ships' prows
The numbers of soldiers that nations can field in CK2 and EU4 is balanced around gameplay purposes and in many cases very ahistrocial
These army sizes are not one or two clans, they're the combination of 20+ tribes and clans - and that only got them to 40,000 - only when a whole other confederation joined with 10,000 did the number go to 50,000
My bad there; I misspoke
And plus, I believe we have naturally occurring metals that are harder than bronze - the swords and other weapons Rukbans use come via merchants from the tedar and whatnot - and perhaps there is the odd blacksmith who has learned. So we're not actually in the 'bronze' age on that front.
I don't think the presence of other metals (if they are even worked and/or widespread) can really be used to justify having technological advancements beyond those of the Bronze Age.
I definitely think that somewhere like Alefpria would have populations north of 100,000
Alefpria is a magical place with too many blessings and benefactors to count, hence why it has the mist to keep out interaction from other cultures and justify it being allowed to have so many things. As such, I don't count it when talking about general population sizes or technology levels and I don't think you should either.
Edit: plus, steppe hordes whether in 2000 BC, 100 AD, or 1200 AD lived in pretty much the same way. If Attila and the Mongols could muster such large forces, any significantly large steppe culture should likewise be able to. It's not like the Mongols had medicine and technology which was far greater than that of the Huns
I reject this thesis. You take for granted small things like the saddle, stirrup, spurs, cattle branding, and the domestication of a variety of livestock. Even those things were all major innovations that didn't just appear overnight. The fact of the matter is that the Mongols and Huns that came well after the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians (which are probably the closest comparison we can make to the Rukbans, and even then the Sarmatians and Scythians both were around in early Roman times which puts them well after the early Bronze Age period we should be looking at) had larger populations.
Now you can argue that this is just a function of time and them being able to have more generations, but I can just as easily claim that their ability to support a greater population comes down to advancements in herding, medicine, and any number of other small technologies that might be like those aforementioned. Or perhaps trade, raiding, and general interaction with larger cities and agrarian sizes enabled the nomadic people to grow in size. Either way I think it's still silly to have the Rukbans field armies so big and so clearly outnumber every other culture.
[@everyone using CK2 as the basis for arguments regarding steppe nomads vs agrarian societies]
Yes, by this logic the people should all worship Vestec and Jvan because in CK2 every priest and his mother is a member of Lucifer's Own/The Fellowship of Hel/The Cold Ones/*insert other copy and paste demon cults here* and they all get OP powers for virtually no penalty. :/
If accepting 2300 B.C.E. as the start of the Bronze Age (which is where we'd realistically be; at the very start) then numbers are actually even lower than towards the end. Memphis and Akkad both had around 35,000 people in 2250 B.C.E. and they were the largest cities in the region.
So setting it at the end of the Bronze Age is still being generous from that perspective, though you are right in that the middle of the Bronze Age had much greater population sizes. I would contend that we are not in the middle of a glorious Bronze Age right now though, seeing as something like a bronze lance is considered extraordinary and is a rare sight.
In any case, there's no need to argue too closely about the numbers given that we seem to be in agreement here. Armies of 50,000 are just too much.
I had imagined the entire kingdom under Akthanos having less than 100,000 people, and the city of Vetros itself having maybe 30,000 or less. I would imagine that they are currently the most populous nation considering that they have been spared from the brunt of the various disasters to impact Galbar, are situated in a fertile river valley, have agriculture, and have been around for a while. If we decide to use Vetros as any metric by which to compare other regions and we also want to have larger populations, I suppose I could make Vetros more comparable to Uruk in size.
I am not overly bothered by the numbers right now. However, it's looking like those kinds of armies are fielded after a huge unification effort. Either via forming an empire or uniting loads of nomads over a long span of time.
For context, this is a feud that started between two clans and then embroiled a few more, and both sides have these massive armies. Even if we assume that these nomadic tribes can afford to have half their population in battle (basically every male that can fight and then some women too) it still implies that their numbers are huge.
Over in Yorum, I'm currently working on city states having no more than several hundred to one or two thousand men in an army at most. That'll get bigger as we go if they unite, but proportional to the population of each one, it wouldn't make sense for it to be higher.
That's almost exactly how I envisioned army sizes in the Vetros area (and Ommok's kingdom, though the relative size of ogres makes this a poor comparison). I think you're doing it right, and therein lies the problem:
Cyclone: It makes the Rukbans have 10x the population of any other region
Kho: then the other regions are not realistic
If we disregard the size of these Rukban armies and maintain small populations for other nations, it makes a noticeable skew that's something like a plot hole.
Counter statistics include the fact that the Bronze Age began in Europe before 2000 B.C.E., over a thousand years before those things that silly Kho would cite in a misguided attempt to make me look the fool. ( ;p Kho you're dirty)
And remember that not all parts of Galbar are even in the Bronze Age yet.
Even if we cut some slack and say that Galbar is equivalent to maybe Earth around 1000 B.C.E., Wikipedia says that the world's largest city at the time was Thebes in Egypt, which was home to 50,000. Having two random clans of nomadic pastoralists fielding armies larger than Vetros' entire population strikes me as utterly absurd.
By no means do I want this to be like last RP where there are 10,000 people in the entire world, but come on guys...I think there's a more reasonable middle ground that can be found by roughly following historical population sizes.
Edit: I'll take the liberty of posting the pertinent lines that sparked this debate between Kho and I.
'How many?' Shaqmar asked Yoditi as he galloped back to him. 'Many, my Qa'id. More than thirty thousand,' the veteran responded. Shaqmar's war party had taken some significant losses as they advanced. While he had forty thousand warriors with him when he marched forth, which had been bolstered by the ten thousand Tagham to fifty thousand, he now had just over thirty-nine thousand warriors.
Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I got started with writing online on the Spore forums. Man, those were the days. We're talking like [s]12 years ago[/s] 2010-ish!
I've been here on and off for almost as long, and have GM'd a bunch of different things to varying success.
[center]Word of my splendor:[/center]
[hider=My messenger's letter][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019b0090-4706-75b9-bfe5-fd4ef6737466.webp[/img][/hider]
[hider=My fellow monarch's response][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019b0090-a418-774f-a117-1ae23ac670fd.webp[/img][/hider]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I got started with writing online on the Spore forums. Man, those were the days. We're talking like <span class="bb-s">12 years ago</span> 2010-ish!<br><br>I've been here on and off for almost as long, and have GM'd a bunch of different things to varying success.<br><br><div class="bb-center">Word of my splendor:</div><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="My messenger's letter">My messenger's letter [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none"><img src="https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019b0090-4706-75b9-bfe5-fd4ef6737466.webp" /></div></div><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="My fellow monarch's response">My fellow monarch's response [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none"><img src="https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019b0090-a418-774f-a117-1ae23ac670fd.webp" /></div></div></div>
Member
Lord Zee
Vec
JFK
Fetzen
Thayr
BingTheWing
