Combat-Writing Thread

Even more of a businessman. If you read accounts of real organized mobsters, they hardly ever kill unless its a sure thing.

The switchblade and trench knife were favorites of mobsters and gangsters in real life. After WW 2 the trench knife became particularly popular among criminals, as they were manufactured in massive quantities and are brutal close-quarters weapons.

So, how I handle stuff as Squishy Wizard vs other archetypes such as Mighty Glacier, Lighning Bruiser and Fragile Speedster?

I'm wondering how to handle my MC without making his fights being a Curb-Stomp Battle from either side.

He does get several power ups, but he really don't get too crazy until the end and even there he's pretty fragile compared to his teammates.

Also. How to handle power ups? The whole story is designed to end in Crazy Battles involving literal gods, but then...how I can handle my MC getting near their level while keeping secondary characters important.

I'm writing a fight scene between two teenagers. One is an eighteen-year old and the other is about fifteen or sixteen years old. I want to know if the two to three year age difference would give the older teen an advantage or not.

At that point I'd imagine that individual differences (stature, strength, whatever their fighting technique is) would matter more than the age difference. That age gap is already at the tail end of the adolescent growth spurt, so the inter-group variance is low.

Unless the 18 year old has the benefit of 3 extra years of athletic practice under their belt. That's why freshmen rarely beat seniors.

Looking to do a few fight scenes involving a 12 year old version of Cole Streiss, whose powers are basically molecular scale Telekinesis. Cole's powers are ludicrously destructive, but especially at 12 he barely understands them. He is utterly inexperienced, but when he gets angry enough or motivated by outside factors, his powers really express themselves.

Can I get any tips for writing Cole's "inexperience and weakness until he gets angry or otherwise properly motivated" thing? Most of the other combatants are fully grown men who tend to look down on Cole in all senses of the phrase.

Hmm, well, violence is scary, especially when you're 12. Why is he fighting in the first place and what do his peers expect from him? I think it'd only be natural for someone out of their depth to hang back and try to stay out of trouble, rather than going out of their way to smack the foe in the face.

When someone who's not fully prepared for a fight gets in one, you can predict their response with the Four F's: Flight, Freeze, Frenzy and Fuck Around. The first two are quite self-explanatory, but when you're fighting in a team, with peers and superiors looking on, the pressure would be high to pull your weight and not let your teammates down. So that leaves us with the other two options.

Frenzy is when a combatant tries to overcome their fear and confusion with an outsized display of aggression. Think of a soldier screaming out and firing off a long burst from their automatic weapon at the general direction of the enemy, without necessarily aiming at anything in particular. Or ancient warriors charging out on their own and, well, screaming at the top of their lungs, leaving behind the safety of their allies' shieldwall.

Our combatant is stressed out and struggling to remember the motions of their training. But they don't want to look weak. So like a cat arching its back to make itself look bigger, they fall back on the most aggressive thing that crosses their mind... at least until the burst of adrenaline wears off and panic sets back in.

Fuck Around is a bit subtler. The combatant isn't so stressed out just yet that their mind completely stops functioning, but enough that they can't carry out their tasks effectively. Because everyone is under pressure to not look useless in combat, they'd try to make it look like they're doing something to help. There's a well-known (though methodologically suspect) study on WWII soldiers that claimed that most of them were reluctant to kill but didn't want to look useless. So instead, they fired high, or without aiming carefully first.

Regardless of whether or not that's true, there are many other ways that a combatant could dither without actually contributing much. They could call out foes that their teammates are already engaging, or add similarly unhelpful comments. They could fidget around with their equipment, or "volunteer" to bring supplies from the back to allies who don't need them, or ask for orders when they ought to know what they're supposed to be doing, or mumble out generic, cookie-cutter orders if they're in a commanding position.

For your character, I'd guess that he could make a show of "winding up" his power for no real purpose, or launching half-hearted attacks without getting close enough for them to be effective, or giving his allies all manners of unhelpful "assists".

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Oct 25th 2020 at 6:13:22 AM

He's fighting more or less because the group he's a part of has to fight to keep the world safe from any number of evil things and antagonists. Cole's not exactly part of the vanguard but he's ultimately had to step up a few times before. Plus in his home world, he's not exactly unused to violence. He's had to survive a pretty nasty Bad Future.

Young, dorky Cole has ended up in that kind of "Attack Attack Retreat Retreat" mentality before that you mentioned. Owing to his powers, he'll end up hitting someone really hard, then suddenly go on the defensive or retreat when he realizes the initial outburst is not quite enough.

Cole's powers are telekinesis and telepathy on a lot of steroids; he can manipulate stuff on the molecular or atomic scale, and barely understands at this point how to really use any of those powers or how to properly control them. So he can go from getting kicked around to suddenly blasting someone into a pile of ashes.

Yeah I think a few of those options sound good.

I'm trying to come up with a combat pair involving an Archer Archetype. I'm trying to think of a weapon to give their partner that will compliment the bow. It can't be a gunpowder weapon. I'm thinking of something close range, like a knife or an hatchet.

The best thing you can give the archer's companion is a spear. That can be used to hold off the enemy until the archer can put an arrow in their eye.

Although I have to say, now that I've read the Archer Archetype, it's almost the opposite of historical reality, so I don't know, go with what works for your story.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 15th 2020 at 2:54:40 PM

Seconding the spear, provided it's reasonably common in the setting and your character doesn't mind carrying one around. Though a sword or axe might be easier to carry around and not raise as many eyebrows in an urban environment. It all depends on the kind of action your characters are expecting to see and what tradeoffs they're willing to make.

(Also inb4 people who have never held one going "a sPeAr iS nOt a dUeLiNg wEaPoN!!!")

A spear is the dueling weapon par excellence (in settings where the rapier hasn't been invented yet).

(Heh— using a bow in an urban environment). If the story requrires a single-hand weapon of some kind, I recommend something like a messer or a falchion depending on the era.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 15th 2020 at 5:22:27 AM

To clarify, this is set in a Medieval-like time period, hence why there are no gunpowder weapons. What I'm getting from this thread is that the weapon should be long to hold off the enemy from the archer.

Out of curiosity, what kind of weapon would you pair with the Knife Nut or someone with a hatchet?

It depends entirely on the scenario. So, what are they doing? Are they out hunting? Carrying weapons for everyday self-defence? Engaging in a massed battle? Sneaking around? What kinds of foes and allies are they expecting to see, and how many?

Mostly they'd be sneaking around. Their enemies would usually be guards.

Did you check the Messer link I posted above? Messer's are basically sword-sized knives that were common in Northern Germany in the 15th century, the very end of the medieval period. They actually ranged in size from large knives to two handed swords, so you have a lot of flexibility in that regard. If that's not historically early enough for you, a Saxon/Viking sax/seax might be just the thing.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 15th 2020 at 7:41:30 AM

If they're sneaking about in a populated/urban setting, then they'd both probably stick with a concealable dagger. Maybe a culturally appropriate shortsword or hatchet if they could carry/conceal it in public without rousing too much suspicion, or secure it tightly enough to their body to not get snagged or make noises while sneaking.

Bows and their quivers are more of a hindrance than a help, unless they're doing their sneaking in the wilderness. And if they get in a straight-up fight with numerically superior guards, with actual weapons and armour, then they're already dead.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Nov 15th 2020 at 5:03:06 AM

'Course, the traditional sidearms of the archer in the late medieval period was the sword and buckler. You at least had a fighting chance against a more heavily armed opponent with that combination.

What are some ways to describe and emphasize a monstrous boxing champion with borderline superhuman speed and power?

Some ways I came up so far:

• Comparing the sound of his punches to that of a gunshot
• Describing through the POV of the poor opponent, who comes up with all the plans of defending against the champion, only to realize that his face has already hit the ground.
• Pointing out how his punches are so fast that they come up as blurry even in cameras
• A referee, who took this job simply because of just how much he loves to watch bloody fights up close (like memetic Steve Willis), is actually terrified to do his job in the champion's presence around.
• Anytime he lands a punch, the medical personnel near the rings tense up.
• (I could go with how teeth are flying, but ehhhhhh I'm a bit too squeamish for that...)

Any other ideas?

Edited by dRoy on Nov 16th 2020 at 9:28:19 PM

In terms of larger scale combat, I might end up doing something RP related on here based on New Dawn's fourth installment - and thus I need to write for the 317th, and their tactics. They're kind of difficult for me to really get - more or less, they're young men from the central setting of Sandfield, California, a fictional city in California in the rough Bay Area approximate.

More to the point, they're teens to early twenties and at the start at least they're fighting a large modern mercenary army brought in by Elijah Gibbs, a sort of prosperity gospel preacher / corrupt corporate type. Essentially, Sandfield was declared to be No Man's Land and cordoned off from the rest of the country due to a localized magical plague Elijah warned would spread without limit.

So Elijah set up Green Wall, a massive series of magitek walls that would more or less grind everything in front of them to dust, around Sandfield - getting the blessings of President Trump to do so.

Matthew, the protagonist of the stories, is outnumbered and, even with the powerful magic of the setting, he can't fight on his own. So much to his regret, he decides to start recruiting for La Résistance, using an underground magical device called the "New Protocol Device" to get his recruits into fighting shape far sooner so as to maximize lives saved.

The New Protocol Device changes those who enter the pods inside over the course of a week, giving them traits from Matthew - which vary and include everything from his physical aptitude, fighting skills, skill with combat magic, and even as far as influencing their appearance - for example, Garth Summers went from a rather dumpy looking young man to a hunk over the course of that week.

This comes with Powered Armor, magitek weapons, and odd mental effects - including The Fall, which resulted from the New Protocol device not handling Matt's mental issues very well. The Fall is very much a dreaded thing - if a 317th member hits a certain low point or succumbs to negative emotional excess, they go into a sort of berserker fugue where they experience the constant sensation of falling.

So with the backstory out of the way, I'm trying to write the way the 317th boys handle their new abilities, the Mildly Military structure of the 317th, and tactics. They're basically entirely bulletproof, and their weapons can typically rip through most regular mundane armor.

Should I include any issue with following Shin Oumitsunu's tactical decisions?

How should they handle the concept of a hierarchy in the 317th?

Should they be bothered significantly that they don't seem to experience many doubts or hesitation before fighting due to the Protocol Device's mental effects?

Alright, so what we have on hand is an insurgency/counter-insurgency situation. Every fighting force mirrors the society or community that produces it. So to figure out how these folks are organised, first we'll need to establish one thing: what's life like for the rest of Sandfield? Were the regular people all evacuated or imprisoned somewhere? Or are they still living semi-normal lives inside, just under a military occupation and a Magitek cordon?

Napoleon once said that an army marches on its stomach. This is true even for a small insurgent army: it needs friendly supporters to shelter it; feed it; provide it with critical intel; repair and replace its equipment; treat its sick and wounded. If the town is abandoned, then it's just a waiting game until they starve out; in the meantime, the occupying forces could simply stake out places like supermarkets and pharmacies, waiting for them to make a supply run.

If the locals are still around, then we're talking about a different game altogether. Your La Résistance might be fighting part-time and spend the rest of the time earning a living through their day jobs. Or they might be fighting full-time on the run or from a hideout, in which case they'd need someone trustworthy to stock them with everyday supplies… or get them through theft and robbery. They might maintain contact with doctors and vets to discreetly treat their wounded; electronics geeks to help them out with equipment; truck and rental van drivers to get them places; pub owners to get them intel and new recruits. If any of them already did one of these things as their day job, then that'd make things a lot simpler, of course.

The occupying force, in turn, would try to make things as difficult as possible for the insurgents. They might implement rationing to ensure that nobody is skimming off extra food to feed the insurgents. Or keep an eye out for bulk purchases of mundane items and surges in electricity use, to key them to where the insurgents might be hiding. They might set up checkpoints, curfews and traffic stops to make it difficult to move around unnoticed. If they're not too incompetent or cartoonishly evil, they'd play nice with some trustworthy locals who could snitch on their neighbours who might be supporting the insurgents, as well as try to treat the people fairly to avoid provoking them into joining the insurgency.

And in this digital age, they'd try to surveil phone and internet communications as well; even something as mundane as social media posts from the locals could net them valuable clues on the insurgency.

Anyway, that was the gist of an urban insurgency campaign. If your La Résistance is strong enough to consistently beat the occupiers in combat, then you could focus on the action; but otherwise, an insurgency is more like a very, very dirty political campaign than a straight-up war. Both sides' goal would be to rally their supporters, silence the other side's supporters and sway the neutral/"swing-voting" populace to their side until it becomes too politically/logistically difficult for the other side to keep operating in the region.

Now we come to the fancy spec-fic part. You mentioned that the "New Protocol Device" is a key part of the 317th's operations, turning them into capable fighters. So for them, this device is a strategic asset. With great power, as we all know, comes great responsibility, so the device would form an important part of the group's organisation. I don't know what Matthew's personality is like, but a leader in his position would logically prioritise people he'd already trusted to get enhanced first. You wouldn't want to hand that power to any random outsider, after all — especially if there's any chance that they might disobey orders, challenge your leadership or outright defect to the enemy.

In a professional army, every part ideally works together in concert. If a scout spots some enemy movement or a radio operator hears their chatter, every commander in the unit gets notified. If a unit gets a fresh shipment of new weapons or, iunno, comfy combat socks, it gets quickly distributed to every sub-unit. Everyone works together towards the same goal.

Non-professional armies do not work this way.

Say we have two insurgent groups in a city: one from Northbridge and the other from Southbridge. They're not usually on great terms, because they're both funding themselves by selling Girl Scout cookies and have ongoing disputes over turf; but this one time, they're working together to ambush a convoy of armoured vans. The Northbridge group want to do this by their plan. The Southbridge group insists on going by their plan. The Northbridge group say they're the ones with the rocket launchers, so they're the ones who get the final word. The Southbridge group say that they're the ones with friends on the force, and threaten to tip them off on the Northbridge group's illegal cookie dealers. The squabbling continues; nothing gets done.

Your rebels are humans. They're going to disagree on how to fight, who gets to lead the fight, what to do after the fighting's done. Limiting access to the device would be one way to keep them in line, and make themselves stand out to all the other rebels who might be fighting through more mundane means in the meanwhile.

On the flipside, insurgent groups can make themselves survivable by working in a networked cell structure. For example, Matthew's group of empowered superhumans could form a "strike" cell that plans and carries out big setpiece attacks. Instead of putting every civilian sympathetic to his cause in the device, he could instead recruit them to set up their own "fighter" cells from among their friends, who'd support their big attacks with mundane weapons/magic and help them get away by distracting and overstretching the occupying mercs. A sympathetic doctor could recruit like-minded medical workers into a support cell to treat their injuries after a battle; likewise a friendly bodega owner could provide them with money, supplies and getaway drivers. People working in government offices or high-traffic establishments like malls could set up intel cells simply by asking their local associates to keep them updated on things happening around. You get the idea.

On a day-to-day basis, these cells don't need to be in constant contact with one another. If one intel cell working off the local DMV gets busted, for example, they wouldn't necessarily have the knowledge to ferret out Matthew's group to the mercs; only that they'd meet one of his folks at a local park every Tuesday evening, or somesuch. And each of these cells, in turn, could recruit and generate new cells from among their contacts, making the insurgency very hard to kill.

When not banding together for a big operation, each of these cells could do their own thing to make life difficult for the occupiers: ambushing soldiers, intimidating snitches, listening into enemy comms, intercepting their pizza deliveries to sow discord and hurt morale, shitposting spreading propaganda on social media, organising flash protests and riots, rescuing kittens from trees to win over the local populace, and so on.

Soon enough, their enemies and rivals would find out about the device. Maybe it's the noise, or the weird flashes of green light in the night sky, or the exorbitant electricity bill of the local citizen who's been sheltering your characters in her basement. Or maybe they'd read news articles or classified research on where your heroes' powers come from.

Losing the device would be a massive blow to your rebels: they lose a means to induct powered-up new recruits, the enemy gets a propaganda victory (or even a way to empower its own troops), the locals might get disheartened and stop supporting them. Once the occupying force figures it out, using it would be very risky. They'd need to hide or move it around to prevent that from happening, which would the cap the number of new recruits they could power up.

As for the internal organisation of Matthew's group: if they started out from a small group of close-knit friends, then I think they could afford to run around with a Mildly Military structure for a while. Set up some house rules, put up every major decision to a vote, and you're good to go. I'd imagine a fairly egalitarian structure in that case — Matthew leading as a "first among equals" and the rest taking up specialist roles.

Morale is important, so they might build an in-group identity by styling their logo or slogan after a local sports team or something, as well as helping each other out in their civilian lives. As long as they maintain a strong group cohesion and help psych each other up, they should maintain the psychological challenge relatively well… or at least as well as you'd expect a group of enthusiastic-but-untrained fighters to.

The larger the group gets, the trickier things will be. You can't put everything to a vote anymore, especially not if you don't personally know everyone in the group. The senior members, already experienced and well-trusted, would act as officers to keep the recruits in line. Every new recruit would have to be vetted to make sure they're not a mole. For security reasons, you might even have to split it into several different cells — with the recruits in each cell reporting to their own commander but rarely interacting with the other ones, let alone meeting Matthew personally.

If the insurgency grows sufficiently strong and the occupiers sufficiently weak, then you might eventually see them throwing off these security measures to join up into a single unit, working together like a "proper" army.

As for tactics:

Well, every story needs a conflict. If they could blast their way out of every situation, then there wouldn't be much of a challenge; it's up to you to challenge them by putting limits on their powers, throwing them into disadvantageous situations or making them fight wily foes who could target their weaknesses.

For example, If they do a lot of damage on every attack but the occupiers manage to successfully paint them as terrorists and dissuade the locals from supporting them, then they're not exactly winning. And the physical changes and fugue states could give them away to the enemy, or hinder their day-to-day operation more generally. Aside from the generic morale stuff and interpersonal bonding, they should probably invest in a trustworthy counsellor/chaplain figure to help them weather the stress, as well as pacing their operations and rotating their lineup to make sure that no one gets psychologically overwhelmed by the constant violence and sneaking-around.

And you'll want to decide the basics of their operation: do they stick together to do the most damage on a single, spectacular attack, or do they spread out to individually pull off smaller attacks that force the enemy to overstretch? The first option maxes out their combat power but requires more logistics and puts them at the risk of being encircled. The second could overwhelm the enemy but requires a lot of daring and initiative on an individual/small-group level, and could lead to empowered individuals going rogue or defecting outright.

Responding in order...

Sandfield has gone through some rather tough circumstances before this all happened. There was a large protest attempt by many of the adults and other citizens there to attempt to dissuade Elijah or tell him that the plague had dissipated - and Elijah responded to the protests by gunning them all down and making up a cover story involving terrorism to justify it. A lot of the 317th members lost someone in Elijah's "Greenway Park Massacre". The regular people left alive are trying to find some way to survive even as Green Wall slowly oh so slowly crushes them. Though there are multiple sympathetic figures to the 317th who show up repeatedly.

The owner of a prominent local market chain more or less lets the boys of the 317th use his stock of food because 1) his son is in the 317th, and 2) he recognizes if they lose, the only thing standing between him and Green Wall smashing him to paste is gone.

Yeah that is more or less what happens - the hideout is more or less located where everyone went to school, repurposed and built up to be more like a base. Due to what The Fall entails, maintaining an every day life and career outside of fighting is heavily encouraged. The less Fallen the better. There are a number of vets and doctors (the latter even including a former villain of Matt's Rogues Gallery who decided it's Evil Versus Oblivion) who decide to help the heroes. Two of an earlier Terrible Trio help out with gadgets and keeping the tech working. They do get transports up and running, and one of the 317th higher ups was a doctor's kid who was studying to be the same.

Yeah I figured that much, though the idea of preventing anyone from skimming food to give the insurgents could make things interesting. My most recent Hero Critique Thread subject, Paul Navarro, is more or less exactly that. Secretly going about trying to help the insurgents while evading scrutiny from Elijah and his forces. That use of bulk items and surges in electricity thing is diabolical and I like it. As for playing nice with locals who might be sympathetic, that does come up after a bit of regime change in the occupying army. More on that later.

Hmm, what if Green Wall, on top of everything else it does, makes it so phone and mobile data can't reach outside its walls? A sort of North Korean Internet effect.

At first the 317th is more or less able to continuously vanquish Elijah's more mundane forces. The drama is about fighting where they can in order to rescue people endangered by Elijah's forces. Later on, Elijah starts employing mecha-tanks and more Magitek of his own to mixed results.

Essentially, the New Protocol Device is half underground and is more or less a huge structure concealed by wooded surroundings, and its history has some interesting tidbits related to the 317th's abilities as an army. Its mental effects on those who go through with it make it much more difficult for a recruit to end up defecting or going rogue. It deserves to be said Matthew and those with him didn't really know much about it going in, just that it could take someone not exactly fighting fit and make them a magic slinging super soldier a week later. It's more or less a case of a poor choice being the best choice. For those who do go through with it, there's a subtle mental effect induced that in the past would've been More than Mind Control. More or less, there's a tendency in them to respect and be loyal toward Matthew, though not strong enough to be totally domineering over the recruits.

There is definitely still disagreement, but more of a "when the fighting starts, come together" understanding. Access to the Device is strictly limited to initiate members of the 317th, screened very carefully. Owing to how it works, the Device only really works on those in their teens to twenties.

There were a number of attempts by Elijah at seizing the New Protocol Device, but none of them really worked out.

I was thinking about having them go with a sort of progress toward more official military as the structure and numbers of the 317th grows. Morale is especially important in the 317th due to how The Fall works. Extensive negative emotion or experience can result in an outbreak of it - so a group identity would be utterly necessary.

In terms of 317th abilities, the higher ups' armor gives them magical wings that let them fly, and even the ground level forces can sort of fly on a "Burst Pack" mounted on the back of their armor. It's more a difference of length of flight time and duration of glide. They slowly add more and more fortifications to their hideout, and as things develop, life in Sandfield starts to centralize around the school due to the growing number of battles.

As for the enemy capabilities, Elijah at first just came in thinking a large enough army would be enough to steamroll the opposition. But then he gets defeated a few times, realizes he's being outmatched, and starts bringing in mecha-tanks, hired magic users, and some other magitek to supplement what he has already. But it does deserve to be mentioned Elijah was not a very good leader regardless - he was a prosperity gospel preacher and corporate type who was so convinced of his rightness that it would lead him to victory. However, Elijah ultimately dies to one of his own fellow priests, and his adoptive son Caine Dekeren takes over the assembled army - and promptly turns it into The Umbral Horde, which I suspect would require a new post.

At any rate, here's the 317th's leadership:

Matthew: The Hero of the story, he's all of nineteen when the events start taking place. He's fought through the events of three other books at this point, and has a lot of experience despite his age. Matt has a magic type based on creating weapons, including legendary weapons. He very often wields a magitek sword in this storyline.

Shin Oumitsunu: The Strategist, Shin is probably going to be...divisive. He's legitimately extremely talented and intelligent, but his references can get annoying even in universe. He uses something called the "Tactics Table", a magical item which lets him communicate with forces in the field and coordinate them all from inside the base. The Table is synced up to "what would make Shin most comfortable using it". Thus, it resembles a tabletop game replete with minis representing his friends - each equipped with a comms system so he can basically pick up a mini, and communicate with who it represents through an earpiece or their onboard armor's system in the helmet.

Daniel: The second in command, and one of the first to be empowered by the New Protocol Device. Daniel wields a gigantic battle-axe that is on record as splitting a tank, and a Hand Cannon. Daniel is allergic to being called "Sir", and really doesn't like the increasingly military atmosphere. This is due to his own military dad and him having a troubled relationship.

Miles: Prior to his enlistment, Miles was victim of a significantly abusive family - enough that he counts his 317th family as his real family. At first not exactly a combatant by choice - he regarded it to be his job to conserve tomes and stay out of the fight, he was put in charge of the library and various magical tomes. Then he got a nasty instance of The Fall, but powered through it by sheer willpower and proper motivation. He's still the "Exemplar Librarian", but everyone kind of realizes he's up there in the hierarchy.

Samuel: The doctor's kid, Samuel has to reckon with the fact he has to do harm in order to save more people, and reconcile that with his dislike of fighting and the oath of a doctor. He takes care of The Fallen - more or less permanent cases of 317th members who've underwent The Fall. He's constantly trying to bring them back to sanity.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 1st 2020 at 6:01:49 AM

Now as for that Umbral Horde...

I am curious how such a shift would affect the dynamics of the war.

Basically, after Elijah died, his adoptive son took over. Caine Dekeren is more or less a crazy Daydream Believer who thinks he's several different villains "incarnation" in the present iteration of "the play". He sees everyone as narrative devices and story roles. He's also incredibly powerful, which let him seize the position of Scion of the Eight Dark Gods - leader of the Umbral Horde by default - by simply beating down all his challengers.

Essentially, each Dark God has their own Scion, but if someone is Scion to all of them at once, they're the leader of the Umbrals. Just as a bit of history, the first of these was Mordred Pendragon, crowned by Antonius below.

His chief advisor is Antonius Lucidius Malvo, an incredibly ancient "Dark Priest" from Italy who rubbed shoulders with the Gracchi brothers. He is incredibly old and very experienced.

His chief officers are Aaron Cascade, Elwood Sexton, Tobias Hainemann...and also Reiji. The former three were recruited once they made a Deal with their new Dark God patron, whereas Reiji was a Scion already. All of the above have shown up in the Villain Critique Thread, and I'll go find the links.

Their structure is considerably more based on Asskicking Equals Authority, and for the time Caine is in charge, he basically runs the Umbrals based on his references. It's more or less on Antonius to untangle Caine's references and turn them into a battle plan.

On a related note: toward the end, after Caine is killed, the Umbral Horde would more or less flee the scene. Is this terribly realistic given their army structure? Or should there be some other impetus to make them split up and run for their positions they're in when Book V happens?

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 2nd 2020 at 5:24:52 AM

Cutting off media/telecom access is a fairly standard authoritarian tactic for dealing with civil unrest. But depending on how things go in the rest of your fantasy!US, that might not fly with the rest of the country's populace, putting pressure on the Federal government.

This kind of transition was historically tricky for insurgent groups to pull off, but in this case the Device's effect of making initiates loyal to Matthew is going to be a major help: you can use them as an officer corps for newer/unpowered recruits as the group grows.

You can absolutely implement a rank structure while the group is still underground; the main trick will be figuring out the right moment to switch from unconventional warfare (hit-and-run, political ops on civilians and government targets) to conventional warfare (fighting the enemy army head-on to seize ground and drive them out).

The risk here is that once Elijah's forces figure out where the base is (whether from visible fortifications or pro-rebel civilian activities), they'll set up a blockade to starve out the fighters inside, as well as perhaps loosening the rules of engagement to bombard it from range with heavy weapons and aircraft. They could also set up another magic barrier around the school (if the tech allows) or just lay down prefab concrete barriers around the perimeter.

In case that happens, the pressure would be on the rebels stranded outside the cordon to break the siege, whether by attacking it directly or causing enough trouble in the rest of the city that the besieging forces are forced to peel off to deal with it.

The Voice with an Internet Connection is a well-respected staple of the action sci-fi genre. If you want to milk it for tension, though, there are a couple of real-life considerations that you might want to take into account:

• The Fog of War. Real-life combat operations aren't like an RTS game where Mission Control gets a real-time view of what's happening on the field. They can use all sorts of intel sources to put together a picture of what's happening: voice reports over radio, aerial/drone footage, helmet/body cam footage, CCTVs, spotters. And Shin's Tactics Table might allow him to process all that info than a real-life Mission Control could. But ultimately, there's always a risk of an enemy unit, a terrain feature, or a last-minute development (fires, car crashes) that Mission Control couldn't quite spot with the above means, leading the units on the field into a blunder or causing tensions on whether or not to follow the order.
• A big part of modern warfare is listening into or jamming enemy communications. You could bypass this by assuming that the 317th had superior encryption capability (which isn't the case for most real-life insurgent groups) or using some Magitek means of communication beyond radio intercept. But if Elijah's forces do manage to listen into their comms, they'll risk compromising their whereabouts. Especially in the earlier phases of the insurgency, you might want to max out security by maintaining radio silence: all teams involved in an op rehearse their parts beforehand, avoid carrying maps or documents and just do their jobs according to the timetable without having to talk to the other teams or know where they are.

I mean... sure? At a glance, their leadership seems a bit wobbly at the top, so without someone strong/charismatic enough to hold the thing together, it's quite plausible for the remaining leaders to run off and do their own thing.