At 05:30 PM 3/26/2008, The Swordgaunt wrote:

>I must admit that Brechtur has always been a fringe-territory for
>me, to what extent do they rely on mercenaries? Both the Italians
>and the Hanseatic employed hired armies for most of their wet-work.

That`s an interesting question. First off, I suggest that the
monetary emphasis of the Brecht would mean that many (not all, of
course, but a notable amount) of the units that we might think of as
a "standing army" in other Cerilian cultures would be by comparison
"mercenaries" in the sense that their loyalty is based on a
fundamental employment mentality rather than subjugation to the
state. It`s a subtle distinction, perhaps, but where an Anuirean
soldier would think of himself as having a social duty to his liege,
a Brecht soldier might think more in terms of his professional
obligation to his employer. It`s arguable if one or the other makes
for better soldiers, but from the point of view of the socially
obligated soldier who serves out of more clearly defined terms of
duty and honor, the obligations of a soldier who works for pay would
seem mercenary. Of course, the Brecht do have their own versions of
knights and other soldiers who would serve out of social duty, not
just monetary obligation, but they are closer to the transition
between feudal and "professional" armies than are other Cerilian
races and from the POV of those other races that transition would be
comparable to swords for hire in their own lands.

The second issue has to do more with the nature of mercenaries in
relation to Cerilia`s cultures rather than the Brecht
themselves. Given the financial attitudes and wealth of the Brecht
such "foreign mercenaries" would certainly exist amongst Brecht
armies, but we must consider as much the nature of the other races as
the Brecht desire to hire them. What Cerilian races lend themselves
to forming mercenary companies? Some are obvious, but every culture
has the makings of mercenaries in them. What is most interesting to
me are those occasions when mercenaries have gone up against soldiers
from their country of origin, and that`s probably most likely in a
conflict between the Brecht and any other Cerilian race. With the
Brecht tendency to view things in economic terms such mercenaries
could easily be incorporated into the standard military with little
real distinction made between them and domestic units, and its easy
to see mercenaries adopting enough of Brecht culture to view
themselves as professionals in a way that compares to more modern
views of soldiery.

How much do the Brecht rely on foreign mercenaries? Well, that`s a
tough one to answer exactly because we don`t have a lot of
specifics. If I were to order the human Cerilian races who favor
mercenaries, though, the Brecht would be on the top followed by the
Khinasi, the Anuireans, the Rjurik and last the Vos. Dwarves would
probably be somewhere around the Khinasi and the Anuireans. Elves
and halflings would almost never use mercenaries. The former because
they have a cultural bias, and the latter because they avoid war to
begin with. It`s probably difficult to distinguish between regular
troops and mercenaries when it comes to orogs, goblins and
gnolls. Those assessments are somewhat debatable, of course. In
particular one might want to switch the Anuireans and the Khinasi.

So it depends on how much one views other human races employing
mercenaries. On the whole I would suggest that the Brecht would be
about twice as likely to employ "foreign mercenaries" as the
Anuireans, so amongst their armies we`d find about that proportion
more. A lot of that depends on the individual domain and the
regent`s relationship to local guilders who might control the purse
strings needed to really hire a lot of mercenaries, but as a rough
rule of thumb I think that works pretty well. So if 1 in 10 Anuirean
units is a mercenary the Brecht would have 2 mercenary units. Maybe
3 of those 10 would be "domestic mercenaries" if we want to look at
troops raised through standard mustering processes as mercenaries in
the sense that they are professional soldiers who work for pay. That
would make for half the Brecht military to be "mercenary" in some
sense or another.

As to whether that makes good sense given the game mechanics... well,
that`s another question.

Gary