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Author Topic: Epic Defenses of Cities in the Campaign  (Read 479 times)

SHARK

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Epic Defenses of Cities in the Campaign
« on: May 12, 2021, 02:11:48 PM »
Greetings!

The new video "Defense of Moscow" presented by the metal band SABATON is very cool and awesome! It is very fitting that SABATON released the official video on May 9--Victory Day as celebrated in Russia, commemorating the great victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. It also got me thinking about epic defenses and sieges of cities in the D&D campaign.

Have you had scenarios in your campaigns that have featured similar epic battles defending great cities in war? How did your players handle the scenario? In such an adventure, there are a great variety of adventures and challenges that can be encountered. Not to mention some very interesting environments, whether on the surface, in buildings, in subterranean levels, and more!

Of course, there are also political aspects that can be involved in such a scenario as well.

I think it is interesting that in the large tapestry of such enormous historical events going on, there are often numerous small-scale actions which actually symbolize what is taking place on the greater stage, or foreshadowing such events.

In the "Defense of Moscow"--I'm reminded of how an advance reconnaissance unit of a Panzer Grenadier Division was fighting hard at some crossroads leading into Moscow in the snow and frozen mud, were savagely resisted by some unknown Russian troops of hastily thrown-together conscripts--including some Asian Mongols and others that could hardly speak Russian, as well as Russian farmer conscripts, shopkeepers, and even some Russian women soldiers--fighting with relentless heroism and determination to throw bak and defeat the Nazis at the gates of Moscow.

General Heinz Guderian--a front-line German Panzer commander at the front at the battle--described how leading elements of the German Reconnaissance unit reported raising their binoculars, and could glimpse the spires of the Kremlin.

That was the closest that the Nazi armies would get to victory against Russia.

Citizens from all over Russia, from the mountains, forests, the cities and fields, all answered the "Call of the Motherland" indeed. ;D

Such heroic defensive campaigns have so many interesting elements that can be used by a DM in a series of adventures even, involving such an epic siege of a city. What concepts and themes and such have you used in your own campaigns?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


"It is the Marine Corps that will strip away the façade so easily confused with self. It is the Corps that will offer the pain needed to buy the truth. And at last, each will own the privilege of looking inside himself  to discover what truly resides there. Comfort is an illusion. A false security b

Greentongue

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Re: Epic Defenses of Cities in the Campaign
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2021, 01:24:43 PM »
Locals have a way of resisting strongly to outsiders.
Hard to get that feeling of "Defending the Mother|Fatherland" from players.
Murderhobos just don't have the same viewpoint.

SHARK

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Re: Epic Defenses of Cities in the Campaign
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2021, 02:58:11 AM »
Locals have a way of resisting strongly to outsiders.
Hard to get that feeling of "Defending the Mother|Fatherland" from players.
Murderhobos just don't have the same viewpoint.

Greetings!

Hey Greentongue! Yeah, *Murderhobo's* don't tend to have the same viewpoint and convictions that locals have.

That's also why I often have extensive family and social networks for player characters, which firmly set them into the larger social milieu. Before a large siege occurs, it can emphasize what is at stake when the player characters return to their homeland from some distant, foreign adventure, and have them encounter a local town that has been attacked by the invading enemy in recent weeks, slaughtering many of the local inhabitants. When the player characters attend a funeral for their old priestly mentor, Father Jerome, who was brutally cut down while defending the local church, that tends to get their attention. When one of the player characters searches for the attractive-looking herbalist woman that healed them and aided them during earlier adventures--they learn that her herbalist shop was burned to the ground, and her parents were crucified by the marauding enemy raiders. They also learn that a brute foreign marauder, with a long scar down the left side of his face, beat her into submission, and carried her off on his horse as the marauders left the town in smoking ruins. A surviving neighbor girl describes listening to the young herbalist woman scream as she was carried off.

Outside the town's gates, a local Lord has been crucified by the roadside, with a pack of ravens gathering about.

The player characters typically have become very much involved at such a point. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
"It is the Marine Corps that will strip away the façade so easily confused with self. It is the Corps that will offer the pain needed to buy the truth. And at last, each will own the privilege of looking inside himself  to discover what truly resides there. Comfort is an illusion. A false security b

Greentongue

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Re: Epic Defenses of Cities in the Campaign
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2021, 01:35:57 PM »
In case you didn't know this, you got a good group of players.