Greetings!

In my Thandor Campaign, a Player Character has recently found themselves promoted by virtue of marriage, but also reputation and achievement, to the position of being the ruling Khan over a huge Steppe barbarian tribe. It is actually a cultural blending of three large, powerful tribes, along with half a dozen or so of smaller tribes.

There are approximately 100,000 "Civilian" tribal members, which thereupon support an army contingent of roughly 30,000 warriors, with say, some 20,000 additional troops acting as reservists. The 20,000 Reservists troops are essentially comprised of younger trainees, older instructors, a larger component of older veterans, and, as fitting with the historical mythology, also some women warriors.

What kind of priorities would you seek to accomplish? What challenges might you expect going into such an environment? Your own home tribe is far away, so there is little support from that resource, at least for now. You have a cadre of elite veteran warriors that have been serving you loyally for several years accompanying you on various adventures and campaigns. Your new wife is fiercely loyal to you, and you can be reasonably assured of the loyalty and support from members of her tribe. Beyond that though, and questions emerge, at least to varying degrees.

The "Economy"--such as it is--is of course based upon materiel wealth, but only to an extent. GOLD is valuable, though "Money" or coins are seen as being distinctly less in value. Such forms of coin-based wealth are seen as effeminate, decadent, and a suspicious sign of weakness, if such form of wealth is too keenly prized or sought after. Women, are valuable, and a source of wealth, prestige, and pride. Horses are the main form of currency, as well as normal animals such as goats, camels, sheep, pigs, and cattle. They all have value, though in varying degrees. Believe it or not, some of the value criteria can be pretty subjective, such as the animal's fur colouring, temperament, and things like that. Also, superstitions are prominent as to specific animals, what colour they are, and what characteristics they have--all that can also go into the perceived value of such an animal.

Additional forms of "Currency" are also somewhat difficult to pin down, especially for people born and raised here in the West. Things like a family's reputation, your individual reputation for honour, courage, strength, integrity, and wisdom. Such reputation--and the public support, testimony, or promises of such people--actually gas potentially great and immense significance and influence. By a wise man's or revered woman's word, people can up and have children, assassinate someone, work on some project for decades, or nurture a chilling and grim resentment for decades of time. Vengeance can take years to accomplish, though such is pursued with daily discipline and diligence. Agreements of labour and service, of craftsmanship, or performing some kind of deed, are also forms of exchange. Honoring someone, with your public words of praise and confidence, or giving someone a particular item as a way of showing them honour and trust, also can be seen as a kind of "currency".

Tools of good craftsmanship are valued, as well as many kinds of natural products, such as Sable furs, tiger furs, Auroch horns, necklaces of wolves' teeth, and such like. Many of these items possess a kind of universal value and appreciation, though they can also possess additional value and prestige based upon WHO made it, and WHO is giving it to you, or offering it to you as a form of exchange. Or as a token of honour and reward, such items can have a very strong value. Then, of course, some of these items can have particular tribal history, or religious and spiritual values. These tribal and spiritual details can be a source of immense value and prestige for particular items or products.

It is a very different world to enter into than a mercantile, Western-based kind of cultural environment.

The Player involved, is cheerfully eager to embrace the adventure, though some of the cultural details are mysterious and a source of some apprehension.

It is definitely a different environment for a character to navigate from compared to a dungeon where you just climb, dig, hack, and burn. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Do as Ghengis did. Look to my neighbors. If they are strong, do some raiding and pretend its just a small group of outcasts doing the raids. If my neighbors are weak and/or in political turmoil, conquer them. Once we've expanded as far as we can reasonably go, consolidate power and co-opt the existing ruling structures. Big problem with steppes is they are generally not particularly good for agriculture and nomadic lifestyles don't lend themselves well to advanced commerce or financial systems. By conquering a neighbor with better land, I can use that part of my new kingdom/empire to set up an economic base. After that? we'll see how things go, but it will probably take years and that may end up being my heir's problem.

I'd probably die on day one after drinking some fermented yak milk.

> Be very big and powerful nomadic leader
> Unit all the other local steppe tribes via diplomacy and war.
> Become the most powerful warlords in the region and terrorize my neighbors for decades.
> Create one of the largest empires known to man, bring low the people's of Asia, the middleeast, and even europe.
> Create an ungodly amount of children via different mothers, confusing the line of succession, make sure not to declare an heir.
> Randomly die after falling off a horse and getting very sick.
> Laugh in Mongolian heaven as my decedents have a death match with the remains of my great empire.

Very simple.

Quote from: ConanTo crush your enemies, See them driven before you, And to hear the lamentation of their women!

- quote is attributed to Ghengis Khan

Take over neighboring tribes. Using any means necessary, do the conquering be it by force of arms, treaties and negotiation, or political marriages. The Khanate must grow large.

Set up a protection racket in the border agricultural areas. Agree to defend these locals against tyrannical government in exchange for food and shelter during the winter months, but also threaten to raid them if they do not comply. This will help to establish the foundations of an empire.

Choose a single large and wealthy city-state that is not so big that it cannot be lost by its neighbors but also not so large that the tribe loses too many warriors in its sacking. Conduct a classic cavalry raid against that city-state. Make it so horrible, do so much damage, and take so much wealth, that future targets of the tribe would rather surrender than submit to a similar sacking.

And for the love of God, do not let John Wayne star as your Great Khan in a 1956 movie.

If I were a dead khan I would laugh if I John Wayne play me in a movie. At least he's kinda manly. Better than a lot of Asians in Hollywood 😅

Assuming that "me" is a PC at least somewhat like the real me, I'm assuming he'd have at least some of my moral issues with Mongol-style raiding cultures. I am also assuming he'd be smart enough to recognize you can't just decree a mass religious conversion and expect a lifestyle of centuries' pride to change in a generation.

Therefore, the first thing I'd do is try to introduce mass literacy. Make it a cultural good. The wise elders mentioned in the description would hopefully help encourage that. Start by importing books that the clan leaders will find useful and valuable -- military treatises like the equivalent of Sun Tzu, books on breeding horses, political essayists like Machiavelli, etc. Expand this idea to the principle of written contracts, covering all the arrangements described as made by word of honour. Create channels of advancement for children whose mental prowess may outweigh their physical gifts: scribes, clerks, advocates, shamans. Introduce the idea of publishing songs and poems to the cultural bard/minstrel equivalents. If you start on enough of the kids young enough, cultures can go from illiteracy to literacy with surprising speed.

Next step: Try to establish a permanent ruling arrangement with agricultural settlements -- raider nomads are almost always highly disdainful of staying in one place and farming themselves, but they might be persuaded to see themselves as ruling masters to the servants who do. Once the notion of managing agricultural resources as "your own" takes hold, attachment to particular territories and peoples as those you want to protect and nurture rather than simply cannibalize may eventually seep into the culture. Ultimately, once both riders and farmers become accustomed to thinking of themselves as part of "the same" nation, mobility between the groups can be introduced and the need to raid for profit or glory gradually diminished.

I'd have no guarantee of living long enough to accomplish any of this, but this is the best compromise between my real morals and my imagined authority as Khan that I can think of.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 25, 2024, 01:09:32 PMAssuming that "me" is a PC at least somewhat like the real me, I'm assuming he'd have at least some of my moral issues with Mongol-style raiding cultures. I am also assuming he'd be smart enough to recognize you can't just decree a mass religious conversion and expect a lifestyle of centuries' pride to change in a generation.

Therefore, the first thing I'd do is try to introduce mass literacy. Make it a cultural good. The wise elders mentioned in the description would hopefully help encourage that. Start by importing books that the clan leaders will find useful and valuable -- military treatises like the equivalent of Sun Tzu, books on breeding horses, political essayists like Machiavelli, etc. Expand this idea to the principle of written contracts, covering all the arrangements described as made by word of honour. Create channels of advancement for children whose mental prowess may outweigh their physical gifts: scribes, clerks, advocates, shamans. Introduce the idea of publishing songs and poems to the cultural bard/minstrel equivalents. If you start on enough of the kids young enough, cultures can go from illiteracy to literacy with surprising speed.

Next step: Try to establish a permanent ruling arrangement with agricultural settlements -- raider nomads are almost always highly disdainful of staying in one place and farming themselves, but they might be persuaded to see themselves as ruling masters to the servants who do. Once the notion of managing agricultural resources as "your own" takes hold, attachment to particular territories and peoples as those you want to protect and nurture rather than simply cannibalize may eventually seep into the culture. Ultimately, once both riders and farmers become accustomed to thinking of themselves as part of "the same" nation, mobility between the groups can be introduced and the need to raid for profit or glory gradually diminished.

I'd have no guarantee of living long enough to accomplish any of this, but this is the best compromise between my real morals and my imagined authority as Khan that I can think of.

Shark,

For starters, kill this guy.  Who imparts their own 21st century moral values on fictitious nomadic conquerors?  Surprised he didn't suggest choosing your pronouns....

I think I'd follow the Ibn Khaldun cycle and go conquer some nice soft decadent city states, so that my weak and decadent descendants would lose Asabiya and be conquered by the next Strong Man off the Steppe.

Quote from: Persimmon on November 25, 2024, 03:06:39 PM

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 25, 2024, 01:09:32 PMAssuming that "me" is a PC at least somewhat like the real me, I'm assuming he'd have at least some of my moral issues with Mongol-style raiding cultures. I am also assuming he'd be smart enough to recognize you can't just decree a mass religious conversion and expect a lifestyle of centuries' pride to change in a generation.

Therefore, the first thing I'd do is try to introduce mass literacy. Make it a cultural good. The wise elders mentioned in the description would hopefully help encourage that. Start by importing books that the clan leaders will find useful and valuable -- military treatises like the equivalent of Sun Tzu, books on breeding horses, political essayists like Machiavelli, etc. Expand this idea to the principle of written contracts, covering all the arrangements described as made by word of honour. Create channels of advancement for children whose mental prowess may outweigh their physical gifts: scribes, clerks, advocates, shamans. Introduce the idea of publishing songs and poems to the cultural bard/minstrel equivalents. If you start on enough of the kids young enough, cultures can go from illiteracy to literacy with surprising speed.

Next step: Try to establish a permanent ruling arrangement with agricultural settlements -- raider nomads are almost always highly disdainful of staying in one place and farming themselves, but they might be persuaded to see themselves as ruling masters to the servants who do. Once the notion of managing agricultural resources as "your own" takes hold, attachment to particular territories and peoples as those you want to protect and nurture rather than simply cannibalize may eventually seep into the culture. Ultimately, once both riders and farmers become accustomed to thinking of themselves as part of "the same" nation, mobility between the groups can be introduced and the need to raid for profit or glory gradually diminished.

I'd have no guarantee of living long enough to accomplish any of this, but this is the best compromise between my real morals and my imagined authority as Khan that I can think of.

Shark,

For starters, kill this guy.  Who imparts their own 21st century moral values on fictitious nomadic conquerors?  Surprised he didn't suggest choosing your pronouns....

It's like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court!

I've played this version of Risk and have lost every time...

Quote from: Socratic-DM on November 25, 2024, 01:18:15 AM> Be very big and powerful nomadic leader
> Unit all the other local steppe tribes via diplomacy and war.
> Become the most powerful warlords in the region and terrorize my neighbors for decades.
> Create one of the largest empires known to man, bring low the people's of Asia, the middleeast, and even europe.
> Create an ungodly amount of children via different mothers, confusing the line of succession, make sure not to declare an heir.
> Randomly die after falling off a horse and getting very sick.
> Laugh in Mongolian heaven as my decedents have a death match with the remains of my great empire.

Very simple.

Yeah; I was thinking "stroke the ladies", myself.

Quote from: Persimmon on November 25, 2024, 03:06:39 PMWho imparts their own 21st century moral values on fictitious nomadic conquerors?

21st century, my ass -- this is exactly what a medieval Catholic paladin subscribing to the Just War theory of Augustine would say, if he was unfortunate enough to wind up in that position (and, admittedly, had a slightly more modern sense of what actions would work to actually change a culture). If anything, the 21st century moralizer would condemn me for thinking the raiders' culture had to be changed to conform more with the Pax Dei.

Raiding cultures who prosper by enslaving their foes' women and killing their foes' children are not only a thing I don't have fun imagining ruling as is, they have profound disadvantages against cultures with more rigorous laws and more established traditions of knowledge, and tend to fall apart when the occasional Strong Man who uses them to conquer the world dies.

(accidental double post)

Quote from: Hzilong on November 24, 2024, 10:45:02 PMDo as Ghengis did. Look to my neighbors. If they are strong, do some raiding and pretend its just a small group of outcasts doing the raids. If my neighbors are weak and/or in political turmoil, conquer them. Once we've expanded as far as we can reasonably go, consolidate power and co-opt the existing ruling structures. Big problem with steppes is they are generally not particularly good for agriculture and nomadic lifestyles don't lend themselves well to advanced commerce or financial systems. By conquering a neighbor with better land, I can use that part of my new kingdom/empire to set up an economic base. After that? we'll see how things go, but it will probably take years and that may end up being my heir's problem.

Greetings!

Good plan, Hzilong! Take advantage of other regions and communities that are more advanced and mercantile.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK