Shock Troops: an essential Dark Lord accessory. Or, giant line-smashers: which is right for me?

  Here's the deal: until you have the strength to do a full-array pitched field battle against a foe with an equally impressive fucking army, you're not really a Dark Lord. Not in the true sense. You know, classically  speaking. Your might crushing empires under the appropriate footwear and so forth.


  Not at all like "torching the next village over." Or, "snafflin a good tirty 'ead o' coobeastie from dem wretched McCutcheon mooderfookers, yeah"


  No. A real DARK LORD has, for true, at least one Dread Army/Horde under his/her command and probably more than that. I personally don't take anyone seriously who doesn't have at least one large army that includes at minimum of six or seven of the following elements to it:


1) Magical Support: Defensive/Regenerative

2) Magical Support: Offensive/Killy

3) Main Body

4) Missile Corps:

  a) Archers

  b) Slingers

  c) Siege Engines

  d) Crossbowmen

  e) Giants throwing various livestock and bits of landscape

5) Shock Troops

6) Harrier Units

7) Aerial Units:

  a) Transport/Resupply

  b) Attack, Demoralize, Capture, Terminate

8) Naval Forces (where applicable)

9) Calvary:

  a) Light Dragoons

  b) Heavy Calvary (fully armored, no nonsense wall of iron and horseflesh type of shit)

  c) Mounted Archers (works well for small, nomadic people riding ponies)

  d) Totally sick Raptor riding knights astride wicked-clawed reptilian mounts. Fuckin sweet as fuck.

  e) Dragon Knights (you have arrived...)

10) Engineers: Everyone hates them cuz they're frequently Dwarves but who cares? Provide them with enough sex, money and whatever else you can get them hooked on, or kidnap their loved ones and they're yours. They make collapsing castle walls and digging counter insurgency tunnels refreshingly not your problem.


  A formidable Dark Lord will have all of these assets at his disposal, and probably more. Personally, I have so many different variations of these elements that I sometimes lose track of them all and have to allocate lesser subjugations to my underlings.



  SO shock troops are the pride and joy of your armed forces.The crown jewels in a tiara of relentless brutality. If you think in a 20th century frame of mind, then shock troops are the tanks and armored core of your army. They exist to break shield walls and demoralize your foes through sheer intimidation, fear and ass stomping effectiveness.



The best candidates for shock troops depend on what sort of foe you're facing. Being as fucking humans are the dominant species on most worlds we're talking about here, let's start with the proper Shock Troops for smashing those wee bitty bipeds to pieces, shall we?




TROLLS: I really like Trolls for Shock Troops and Harrier Units. They're great, hulking, well armored brutes, generally around nine feet tall, strong as 10 men and are unusually resistant to most things outside of fire. They regenerate rapidly: a troll that has had an arm lopped off can be pulled from battle for two days while its severed limb regrows.


  Try that with a human...


  As long as you have an Anti-Fire asset in your deck of cards to deal with flame-flingers, Trolls make first rate Shock Troops. Nothing like seeing a giant enemy eating your fallen dead to really take the fight out of you.



ORCS: Orcs make good Shock Troops, they're aggressive, unafraid of death and are mostly able to focus on breaking down an enemy's defense before they allow themselves to indulge in an orgy of rape, slaughter and looting. Discipline is an underrated attribute in some Dark Lords' books.


  That being said, Orcs, while fearsome in their own right, don't deliver the bowel-loosening terror of larger, more exotic motherfuckers. Humans are horrified by armored humanoids larger than them, the bigger Shock Troops you can attain, the less likely it will be that you pathetic human adversary will even attempt to stand against you.



BUGBEARS: I've mentioned Bugbears before in this blog because they make excellent clandestine, small unit troops. They would make fine Shock Troops if you could manage to rally enough of them together for long enough to fight for you without them turning on each other.


  You see, Bugbears are like the Scotsmen of non-human bipeds, they enjoy fighting each other on a clan by clan basis more than any other sentient creature in the multiverse. Ergo, gathering enough of them in one force to be your advance butcher-corps will be highly unlikely if not impossible.



OGRES: They tend to be an independent species and aren't very smart, so convincing them to work in a unified fashion is more or less impossible.Even if you're fortunate enough to land a family of them, it's like herding more than two people while they're on acid-virtually fucking hopeless.


  Which is a shame because if you could get a hundred or so to fight for you, no purely human shield wall would be able to stand against them.



GIANTS: Yeah, sure. Keep dreamin. No Dark Lord in history has been able to assemble a meaningful battalion of giants outside of Thrym, who was the king of the Ice Giants and it still didn't do him any good versus the Aesir.


 Giants are incredibly independent creatures, regardless of race. They are very rare, compete with each other for territory and breed with glacial slowness. Consider yourself a successful Dark Lord if you can convince even one of them to fight for you, much less enough to form a line.


  Now that I've mentioned that, even one giant, properly armored and trained, can decimate a human shield wall. When you have a single determined Giant working for you, you often don't need a Shock Troop Corps, because they ARE the Shock Troop Corps. They wade through puny human opponents like Andre the Giant kicking his way through an obstinate kindergarten class. Unstoppable.


LIZARDMEN: Hail from a swamp, do ya? Lizardman is more or less a generic term for a variety of repto-humanoids. I don't pretend to know all the variations, I have people I pay handsomely to keep track of all that shit for me. What I do know is that lizardmen are generally an order of magnitude better than human troops at nearly everything. They're faster, usually stronger, have tough scaly hides like natural armor and are adept at using weapons. They can run faster, longer and jump higher than any normal man and many of their races possess regenerative abilities like their reptile cousins.


 Discipline can be an issue, but I've found that selectively burning a few of them every now and then gets your message across. And that message is OBEY.


  If you're considering using Lizardmen as an element of shock troop in your forces, do your research, it's no use obtaining a horde of amphibious Lizardmen if you're planning to war in desert, steppe or mountain settings. Dried up Lizardmen are of no use to anyone.


GNOLLS: Savage and chaotic, gnolls make a dicey choice for Shock Troops. They had better be more afraid of you than they are of whoever they're attacking or they'll either break and run or turn on you. Discipline is always gonna be a problem with these hyena headed humanoids. They're moderately intelligent compared to say, dogs, but that ain't saying much.


  They do come with a couple of attributes that make them desirable troops, just not in a massive, intimidating front line troop sort of way. They have excellent night vision, hearing and sense of smell, all things better utilized in a night sentry/stealth capacity than breaking shield walls. They are also surprisingly skilled with a longbow, the best of them can match or best the more adept human archers, although obviously they're not up to Elven standards. Elves being the best archers, period.


THE UNDEAD: So fucking boring. So fucking lame. So insanely easy to kill. Why anyone outside of a Necromancer would opt to use zombies/skeletons as their assault troop of choice is beyond me. Their disadvantages far outweigh their strengths unless you can muster enough of them for a truly awe inspiring horde, but that ain't easy. Think relative populations in context of the world you're trying to subjugate. Generally speaking there aren't usually enough readily accessible corpses just lying around in convenient heaps waiting to be reanimated. You also have to consider the might of the Nercomancer(s) raising them. How many can they raise? How many can they keep under their power at any one time? Are they delegating control to some upper level undead lieutenants like Vampires, Liches or Revenants?


  Too many weaknesses for my taste, especially against some benevolent God worshipping do-gooders whose clerics live for reducing abominations to ash.


ELEMENTALS: If you have the wherewithal to employ some Elementals as your Stormtroopers, ya gotta do it. Not much can make a human shield wall shit it's chain mail better than rampaging spirits wholly clad in fire, earth, air or gods forbid, plasma. (And of course water if you have nautical aims.) Earth Elementals in particular are phenomenal at breaking defensive lines because they can come up from underneath them, and being constructed of the very soil itself, swords and conventional weaponry will be about as useful as caramel armor on a warm day.


  Elementals say to your foe, 'I've got serious magic, bitch. You better have some too or my army will be home in time for Midsummer's Eve."


MONGREL ABOMINATIONS/MUTANTS: If you're a Mad Sorcerer who enjoys dabbling in a little DNA based dark magic, why not just fuse captured enemies with various wild animals and unleash your tortured monster horde against your current foe? If I was a batshit crazy, fume huffin Evil Wizard that's exactly what I'd do.


  Cost effective, and chock full o' job satisfaction.


  Sure there are drawbacks. Discipline may be one of them, complete and utter madness may be another. But I'd bet ya that savagery won't be an issue.



MINOTAURS: Great idea, but world's where Minotaurs exist in large enough populations to make a decent corps of Shock Troops are rare indeed. If you happen to be fortunate enough to exist in such a world and can convince enough of them to fight under your banner, best do it, boyo. Bullheads are tough fighters, skilled with big, fuck-off weapons and they don't die easy. They fight well in clan units, fiercely loyal to their leader and their line breaking charges are legendary.


  Still, out of the range of your average Dark Lord, but definitely worth mentioning here.




  So there you have it, would be Grim Bastards. Ten Shock Troop choices for your consideration. Tune in next week when I discuss the pros and cons of a really terrifying Calvary.


Until then, yours in malevolence,


-Lord Hurderoth


Law His Maybe Word

Artefacts Roadshow: How to find out if your antiquated shit is magic or not and how to get top gold piece for it.

  So you think you great grandpappy's sword may be magic? He was a Hero of great renown and slew many a name-brand monster with it. It's old, it's survived great battles with only aesthetic damage and by default must be magic, right? The family stories tell of it lopping off the toes of an Iron Colossus....


  Most likely you're wrong. Enchanted swords are insanely rare, in a world inundated by swords and related edged weaponry, only a fraction of a percent of existing weapons will be magical and only a tinier fraction will be of  Dark Lord-worthy kickassiness.


  That does not mean it doesn't have value. By all means if you're forced to sell your family's heritage, educate yourself and get top coin for it. Don't take it to a pawn shop like some common druggie. Research that shit, boyo. Expend some jangle to get some jangle.


  Who made it? When? Smiths on every world become collectible due to the quality of their work. Does it have a Maker's Mark? This is stuff you should know if you have to part out your family's glory to cover your gambling debts or whore-tabs.


  If you're counting on someone who buys and sells magic items for a living to tell you fair and true what your blade/various item is worth, then you should walk in backwards with your pants down and your ass pre-lubed, cuz you're gonna get fucked son. Real proper like.


  No dinner first.



  For you rank novices out there, here are some clues that your family blade may be magical:




1) You dropped it one day and it lopped and anvil in half on the way to the floor

2) It landed point first in a marble floor and sank in halfway to the hilt

3) Once unsheathed, it refuses to be sheathed again until it has tasted blood

4) Armor doesn't seem to make a difference to it

5) It glows every now and then

6)  Someone you're descended from pulled it out of a fucking rock

7) It talks to you

8) It turned a 16 year old turnip farmer's son into the greatest hero a nation had ever seen

9) Your ancestor was given it by a watery bitch from a lake

10) It has an exaggerated SCHIIIIING! sound when you pull it from the scabbard, or you can hear dark choral music whenever it is unsheathed.

11) It never rusts. Ever. Can't remember the last time you oiled the damned thing....

12) It bursts into flames when unscabbarded

13) It'll cut through an Iron Colussus's toe.



  But for fuck's sake, do some experiments with it before you spend coin on someone divining its 'powers' for you.

  If you can't make it do anything special, but can't seem to hurt the blade either, then you might just have a non magical but incredibly well crafted weapon, which can be worth as much or more than one with an enchantment. Collectors love rare and master-built things. Just because Grandpop's sword can't hurl fireballs or injure ethereal beings, doesn't mean it isn't a Masterblade forged by a legend.


  Magic ain't everything when it comes to vintage weaponry.



  And speaking of that, weaponry ain't everything either. Most adventurers' worth the name are all kitted up with magic items. The heavy hitters, that is. Armor, cloaks, vests, gauntlets, boots, bags, backpacks, pouches, codpieces, wands, staves and rods, virtually anything might carry an enchantment.*1



  My Aunt Maggie used to have a Tattered Cloak of the Barren Furrow, which when worn during sexual intercourse, would kill any potential pregnancies. She rented it out with great success to teenaged girls in the surrounding villages at 3 coppers a night. I only saw her wearing it once because it was always booked. She used several years worth of the proceeds to buy a slaving ship and the rest, as they say, is history. She built a small empire which my Father eventually inherited, expanded greatly and left to me when I bludgeoned him to death. I can still remember him giving me advice in between blows to his noggin with the bronze gargoyle...


  Things like: "Aargh! Hit me harder!" and "More to the right, no YOUR right!" and "Aim for my temple you dim-witted fuckhat!".


  The only reason I remember Aunt Maggie's infanticidal outerwear is through family legends and because after it ran out of charge, she used it for a goat blanket and when I was a kid I mistakenly thought goats were cool animals.


  So don't readily discount retired Barbarian Uncle Ned's War Loincloth, or Great Aunt Vaiya's Knobbly Wand That Mysteriously Vibrates. What about your Great-Great-Great Grandad's Greaves of Grievously Grim Goll-Thwacking? Yes they look like budget, pressed tin shin guards for the economic and hopeful soldier, but maybe they grant the ability to kick a foe's gonads up through his throat? Have you tried that?


  How did it work out for you?


  That's the thing, ya never know for sure. Magic items never come with an instruction sheet, with the exception of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, they and their use were either passed down to a successor, or were lost with the death of the owner.


 For those with the economic wherewithal, this is where the Research Mage comes into play. Research Magi are fucking worthless in battle, but invaluable in identifying and learning about Enchanted Items. They live for it, the chubby, pimply faced bastards. They can't resist a challenge even if it could end in their sudden and unexpected deaths.


  In some ways they might even be considered more ballsy than those spell-slingers who go into battle. At least in battle you can usually see what's trying to kill you and how it's attempting to accomplish it. Poking around with unknown and potentially lethal magic items normally doesn't come with an long life expectancy.


  Which is why, as a successful and wealthy Dark Lord, you have to seek talent out and more importantly, be willing to pay for it/find it's weakness and exploit it. Despite my nominally evil nature, I've found through experience that paying generously works better in the long run to more Dark Lordly methods, such as holding an asset's family hostage, torture, curses and smacking them in the head when they get out of line.


  Greed is almost always the best weakness to exploit in my opinion. People under your control become terrified of losing the easy lifestyle and casual luxuries your reign has afforded them and that fear alone can be worth countless hostages or innumerable small cruelties.


  A content asset, as much as I hate to admit it, is better than a vengeful, angry or frightened one any day of the week.


  Luckily for all you up and coming Malevolent Madmen and indeed, anyone out there with a bit of coin and some suspicions about a certain item, I've made your lives easier with yet another of my seemingly endless innovations: Magic Item Research Enclaves, or MIRES in DarkLordSpeak.


  MIRES are "freelance"*2 corporations who employ vast networks of research scholars, historians and mages to expertly identify various magic items, weapons and armor, and figure out, for a fee, how to use them without killing yourself and those around you. To the beginner or journeyman adventurer utilizing a MIRE may not be realistically affordable, especially if they find out you that what you have a +1 Sword of Mild Annoyance, or a mostly spent Wand of Ballistic Hamsters. The sale price of which wouldn't even come close to covering the MIRE's fee. Therefore you either try to learn enough about the item to discover if it's even worth the expenditure, or you fucking gamble, plain and simple.


  BUT if the item in question turns out to be a potent magical thang, their fees will more than be made up for by figuring out what bit of arcane kit you've wrested from the clutches of it's former owner and how not be instantly maimed or killed when using it. If your item has certain drawbacks, such as taking a year from your life with every use, making you impotent or infertile or even something weird like transforming you into a tasteful reproduction of a popular watercolor for six hours a month every third Wednesday, you're gonna wanna know about it.


  It could be really important.


  After a MIRE has given you a result and you decide to cash that motherfucker in*3, they will frequently suggest you use an Auction House or Purveyor to make the sale for you, for a percentage of course. All MIRE's have partnerships or associations with multiple sale outlets because frequently their clients have acquired a Weapon or Item that is completely outside of their experience or Class. What the hell would a Ranger need a wand for? Or a Wizard need a morningstar?


  Sell that crap and buy something Class-appropriate for fook's sake. The Pros will get a better price for it than you will, because they know people like me, and you're just a dungeon looter. No offense intended.


  There ya go, would be Dictators everywhere. Be smart with sales of your eldritch booty, don't just let some mid level operator rob you blind because you're drunk and stupid. True Dark Lord material will always come out on top in financial situations as well as the decimation of one's enemies.


  Hope you learned something today, toady.




-Wroth Lord Hurderoth
Colder Than Broth On Hoth















*1 As a scholar of weird and unorthodox Artefacts, I can tell you that one of the single most unique and irreverent magic items ever created was Mollifer's Drumstick of Immolation. The story is long, but to put it inna nutshell:

  Two Wizards were drinking heavily and gambling on a number of table top games that only Wizards would understand or be able to play. They dined indiscriminately on roasted chickens as they gamed and drank and eventually, as Fate would have it, they made a Wager.

  One of the Spell-Monkey's wagered the other that he couldn't Enchant a well gnawed chicken bone in sixty minutes or less.

  As anyone even mildly educated on Enchanting knows, imbuing an inanimate object with magical power is a painstaking and time consuming job requiring precision, patience and an extremely high level of competence. It isn't at all like Warmagery, where spells need to be fired off in an instant. Enchanting consists basically of convincing something that doesn't have a mind that it should listen to you when you suggest it should become magical. That it will like it.

  The result was that a small, underdeveloped chicken femur was transformed into a handheld holocaust that could emit a stream of liquid fire over 20 feet for a period of 30 seconds a day, parsed out however you wished. Mollifer accomplished this Enchantment in 58 minutes and 47 seconds to win the bet.


  His opponent then immolated him with it, thus cementing its Name forever and ensuring he didn't have to pay up on their wager.**





   **I bought it at a rummage sale some three centuries later for four copper pieces as a 'folk art' drumstick. My research department discovered it's secrets for me (which I pay them exceedingly well to do) and current market value on it is something like 8,700 to 10,000 gold marks.





*2 And by "freelance" I mean I own and run every single one of them. Very profitable. Occasionally I open new ones just to fuck with the older, more established MIRES. I subsidize them to keep divining fees artificially low, thus shaming these potbellied non-belligerent magic-mooks.





*3 I recommend using a Purveyor or established Auction House for selling anything even remotely mid-range and up. Yes they are going to charge you up to 25%**, but they have buyers available to them that your alehouse-hero ass doesn't. Serious money people looking to buy interesting shit.


    **My advice is haggle for 15%, but be careful with threats because any organization that has many Items of great power and value in its possession at any given moment will have a fuckton of firepower to protect those Items.

A post to assuage the butthurt of the lesser class "Dark Lords".

 *Yes I know one of the quote marks is backwards. I tried fixing it three different ways and none of them worked. Fuck you Blogger.

 First off, if I hadn't already assassinated the Hierarchy of Doom, then they would have censured me for even referring to anyone under level 20 as a 'Dark Lord'. It's a title that's an acknowledgment of a high level of success, as well as a job description. So, for those under a minimum of fifteenth level, I'm doing you a flattery by even including you in a discussion aimed at actual Dark Lords.


  Be thankful.


 I have been criticized to a moderate degree of late for only offering advice that will be of use to very advanced level Dark Lords, ignoring the plethora of aspiring talent out there, scheming endlessly in their quest for meaningful power.


  I call rocshit on that because I have frequently offered sage counsel to my lowly would be brethren. Remember, I was born into high level privilege but ruined it by being a short-sighted sack-wart and as a result had to start over again at the bottom of the food chain. I have been there, done that and bought the tunic.


  I have lived it.


  So for some pompous minded readers to suggest that I am not mindful of my (secondary) roots, well, it just pisses me off. I will find their worlds and conquer them even if I have to invent spaceships and warp drives, I don't care. My quest to destroy them will give my life meaning, and when you have it all, after a while, a reason to get up every day is a valuable thing indeed.


  That being stated, let's get into some rank level shit here, m'kay? To satisfy those naysayers whose world's I'm going to burn eventually. Sound good?




  It's time for your first 'fortress'. You've reached that 5th or 6th level that says "I'm ready to establish my very first stronghold, let's cut some logs and and mix some wattle and daub. Make sure there's space inside for the livestock".


  It isn't gonna be majestic or even imposing to anyone who could operate a longbow or throw a rock, but it will be your first Evil Holdfast. A place where your slowly growing alliance of scumbags, cutthroats and swords for hire can coagulate while you plan atrocities for them to commit.


  The form this den of inequity will take depends largely on the landscape you power base is located within. You wouldn't for example expect to build a log palisade in the desert, or a subterranean bunker in fathomless loam, would you?


  Only if you're 'have an Uncle-Daddy' stupid.


  SO, this will seem like very basic advice, but that's the theme of this post.


  Build your first defiant structure within the means provided by your sphere of control. What this entails , for the small minded and big dreamed idiots among you, is that you're not going to carve an Ice Castle in a jungle. Nor are you going to be able to build a Granite Fortress in a bog because it will sink until your bed floats and your guards drown.


  Use your head you drooling embarrassment.


  I can see this is going to be an uphill battle, so let me break it down for all you over-muscled, under-brained wannabes out there. I will also preface this by stating that at early levels, your first Dread Fortress may just be a particular island in a swamp. Or a hidden glen in a forest, a cave etc etc. It won't necessarily be any sort of structure in the man made sense.

  Sometimes your headquarters is just a bolt hole no one else knows about. There is no shame in this, or very little anyway.


FOREST: You have two ways you can go here.*1


    A) The Hidden Forest Stronghold. When you're just starting out, oftentimes all you need is a place to run when it gets too hot in the kitchen so to speak. Robin Hood had one of these. Just a big ass oak tree located so deep in a primeval forest, that no one else could find it without him knowing about it well in advance.

  That's it. Just a tree. No palisade or walls, didn't require it.


   B) The 'Everyone Knows Where It Is' Forest Stronghold. That's because you've cleared the land well beyond bowshot so you can see folks a-comin. You've put up your motte and bailey "castle" squarely in the center and every now and then you lead your collection of evil fucks out of the gates to perpetrate horrible shit on the surrounding countryside, or your enemy's hamlet.


SWAMP: I don't recommend this AT ALL. Swamps and bogs are fine for seeking refuge in once you've burned someone else's real estate, but for fuck's sake, don't try to build anything there. It's merely an escape route and safe spot to gather your resources, gird your loins and plot your next violent power/money grab.


  I knew a Dark Lord once who tried building a Forbidding Swamp Keep, against my advice I might add.


  Well lo and behold it sank into the swamp. So he built a second one and it sank into the swamp. The third one burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp. But his forth one is still standing to the best of my knowledge, gods bless him and his pigheadedness. Had he but put half the resources he spent on constructing four Swamp Keeps into expanding his realm and hiring some serious freelance talent, he could've gotten big enough where I noticed him and felt compelled to eradicate all traces of him, his rule, his "nation" and his memory.


  OR, I could've just slapped his forces around in the military equivalent of "being too big to play with the other kids" and then offered him a job running one of my Destination Dungeons. That's what I usually do for minor leaguers who show some promise.


DESERT: I fucking hate deserts. On a personal level., that is. Professionally, once you've conquered all other terrains, you're sort of forced to go after some nomadic desert assholes because you have no one better left to subdue.


  But building anything out in a godforsaken sandpit it costlier than try to build something in a swamp. Water alone is critical and difficult to obtain in adequate amounts. As a man born of a properly forested, well rivered homeland, I can't logically understand why anyone would choose to live in a place where there wasn't a drink available every 30 feet.


  "Hey let's live in a tent all year and roam around a desert wasteland where being without better nation's number one resource will result in the death of your whole tribe. Yeah, that'll be fun for twenty generations. What do you mean you can 'grow' food?"


  Deserts. Just avoid em.



MOUNTAINS: Nothing like some impossibly huge, multi-turreted edifice carved out of the side of a fucking mountain to really give an enemy the willies. Who the hell has the  resources to pull that shit off, it begs the question.


  Well, you don't. Being a low level aspiring Dark Lord, you can't hack a sweet ass Doom Fortress into the side of the living earth. You're no where near the level where mountain-scaping becomes available to you. When you're just a pissant troublemaker, no offense intended, you're more likely to utilize a handy and obscure cave as your "Mountain Fasthold". You shan't be building anything on a mountain any time soon.


  Unless you're of the Dwarven persuasion of course, and then mountains is just what you're into.


  Hi-Ho, motherfucker.



JUNGLE: Don't have any other options, huh? Homeland it just one outrageously huge, steamy and lethal jungle. Well, good luck boyo. Everything living thing in the jungle is either trying to kill you or is plotting with every other adversity the jungle can offer to do you in. Not sure which I hate more, deserts or jungles. They both suck troll balls and you can have em.


  Honestly if I had to die in one or the other though, I'd take the desert. That way I could perish alone with my thoughts, not being slowly consumed while still alive by eight million ravenous insects. It's also worth noting that no Dark Lord worth mentioning has ever come from a jungle nation. There's just something about the crushing heat and humidity...and the fucking bugs....that makes one content with conquering a nearby nation or two.


  Had I been born in a godforsaken jungle, I would've booked passage to a better climate in whatever boat I could afford after stabbing my first victim.


  So, constructing fortresses in a jungle, yeah? You aren't gonna accomplish shit without an entire civilization at your disposal. Just the crews to cut back the relentlessly encroaching foliage on a daily basis would be crippling financially to someone without adequate slave labor or a solid cash flow and available work force.


  My advice is don't even attempt it until your resources are superior to the task at hand. Don't think to yourself " I believe I have enough subjugates, time for that first step pyramid", because you'll probably be wrong. Whatever numbers of workers you believe you need, double it if not triple.


  Fucktons of those workers are gonna die from a large variety of causes. WAY more than you think. Have you cleared ground to grow crops to feed your workforce? It's super fun in a jungle. Some people who weren't born in a jungle and have never been in a real one just assume that abundant food grows everywhere in the lush verdant bosom of Mother Jungle. I mean, just look at that lush canopy....


  What they don't realize is that they're wrong. It can sustain small populations. But to support enough bipeds to build you a thriving jungle kingdom, you're going to require a whole bunch of workable farmland. And the fucking jungle isn't giving that up without a fight. Then, once you've painstakingly cleared the land, you find that the soil is crap, which is ironic because of all the stubborn vegetation you had to repeatedly massacre just to get to the soil.


  Jungles. Find a better place to subdue.



Steppe: Steppe is a word which means 'frozen desert' in some language. I don't know which one, but somewhere, in the multiverse, it has to be. Steppe regions have two seasons, Permafrost and Summer Week. Why anyone would willingly live there if there are better regions to vanquish and colonize is beyond me. If you're idea of heaven is endless, sparse grassland with an occasional tiny hill to spark some excitement, then god bless ya for being so easily entertained. I prefer some landscape, so I took a bunch of it.


  That being said, it's no wonder why herds of small, pony-mounted, arrow-spewing bastards are exceptionally good at conquering other nations, they like to get away from their bleak homelands while the weather is good.


  So if you're going to construct some sort of Foreboding Edifice in a steppe region, don't get carried away. A really big yurt will do because no one is coming for your land and whatever your headquarters may be, they won't need to be defensible. No one wants 800 million acres of mostly frozen grassland except dudes who live very intimate lives with small, bad tempered and nearly indestructible ponies



Island: Islands come with a whole bunch of advantages and disadvantages. Really they're ideal for lower lever Dark Lords, but generally (sometimes based on the size of the island) they become more of a liability in the long run.


  It goes without saying that if you are an aspiring Island Dark Lord, then to conquer anything other than your own isle, your going to need a navy. Or an air force. But as discussed earlier in this blog, air forces substantial enough to actually allow you to overrun another nation are the province of the upper echelon of our trade, way out of your league, small timer. Best focus on a navy first, lad.


  Among the other disadvantages of an island stronghold are:


   -Difficult to grow/herd enough food to sustain a hearty population to feed your war machine.

  -Island paradise weather and hot, slender topless girls make going to war seem kinda pointless, therefore volunteers may be hard to come by.

  -As difficult it is for other powers to attack you, it is equally tough for you to attack them.

  -There's nowhere to run.

  -Island are notorious for volcanic acitvity, one day, your island may explode.

  -You are exceedingly vulnerable to Water-Mages. Which is embarrassing.





  I hope some low level ambitious scumbags will take heed of the advice posted above, free of charge I might add. My PR department is angry with me for not selling it in tome form, but I figure what the hel, right? Giving back to the community and whatnot.



  I look forward to challenges from those who benefit from my wisdom, it makes crushing them all the sweeter.



Yours in Conquest,
-Lord Hurderoth

Be Law His Word May
















*1 Unless you're an Elf, obviously.