What even is Melromarc with Sword of Mars
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
So about the whole war arc I've been struggling to plan out here, its actually really difficult. So let me actually talk about world building for a second before we go down the trail of conquest.
What is the geography of Melromarc?
LOCATIONS: Melromarc's western border is connected to the land of Faubly. Schildfrieden is along the South Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Zeltoble is on the North Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Siltvelt borders Zeltoble and Schildfrieden from their East, and Q'ten Lo to their West. Q'ten Lo borders Siltvelt somewhere in the East in a period of vague isolationism.
(At least this is what I figured out after walking through the wiki for locations for a few days. Then I looked at who they were mentioned being 'surrounded by' and made some logical conclusions on where thing were. Actual geography info trumping surrounded by information.
This may be enough to actually make a map out of, simply to try and place where everything is but I'm actually pretty bad at making maps. But I think making one for Melromarc at the very least will be important.)
Shield Hero has nonsense geography. As in the thought of multiple nations and conflicts within the original work were literal after thoughts. There is no detailed map that shows anything more than a portion of the world, and there is no actual in depth descriptions on exactly where each nation is relative to each other. If they simply gave cardinal directions from each other then it would be fine. For the most part I've been thinking of a mixture of Mexico, Central and South America with Europe. Very humid, wet, swampy and generally things are very isolated. It's difficult to march by land much due to geography and it's hot.
From what I remember from the Manga Melromarc suffers from very hilly and mountainous terrain, along with what looked to be Mediterranean forests and what I assume to be swamps scattered around. The wiki puts the overall population of Melromarc at 750 000, I'm assuming this doesn't count slaves if it does that's actually really sad because that's not enough to maintain a large functioning state. Melromarc's capital which I'm going to be calling also Melromarc(because Castle Town is fucking stupid, give fucking names to your shit Shield Hero.), is likely built along a river that goes out to sea. I'm also assuming that Melromarc has access to the sea somewhere. Oh yeah, Melromarc is set up within a land of active volcanoes.
60 thousand of the population is in the capital. which means 1.25 % of Melomarc's entire population lives there. (Which is still a laughable population size, I'm going to assume that constant monster attacks and the wars has effectively culled the population of the planet to apocalyptic degrees).
How do they feed their people (and why is revolting so popular)? Serfdom and slave labor. Humans are not allowed to be bought and sold in Melromarc, but they are still property under law. You cannot brand a human but you can enslave him to a plot of land without trouble. To feed the large population centers, armies and themselves they need to force people to toil. So most people are serfs. If a serf makes enough money they can potentially buy their own land and become a Yeoman of some variety or multiple generations of recompense could allow them to become Gentry.
In theory the Serf toils for their lord, so they will protect them... In practicality the Serf either dies instantly to some monster somewhere while thinking 'where's the lord's men!' or doesn't need it at all and just sees most of their work get taken away as taxation. Slaves don't even get the benefit of protection, and are likely seen as disposable due to how monstrously cheap they are in setting. The agriculture of Melromarc is: Rice, Barley, Wheat, Oats and Wine with minor cash crops and vegetable farming. They follow a Manorial System. A local lord or priest oversees a large groups of serfs (and slaves) to direct a communal effort of agricultural farming. Usually the controller of a Manor would be a Baron but those who only had small holdings would simply be Manor Lords. Serfs also make up a small portion of the levy, often only equipped with spears, gambesons and if they're lucky a shield.
Melromarc in particular is unlucky because of how fucked up its geography is, much of its territory is simply autonomous, very disconnected and often the roads simply do not connect conveniently to each other in a timely fashion. Messages to get from one place to another can take weeks or months depending on distance and supernatural interference. Attempts have been made to attempt to centralize authority and improve communications but the nation is in too much of a political quagmire to pull off a massive project like that.
In Shield Hero the Church has immense amounts of political power... Which means they must have enough Manors to influence their position in the Feudal Society.
What even is the Military of Feudal Countries like Melromarc? Most of the military is reliant on Knights, Mages and Freemen. Knights are Gentry... Now you might be wondering how much of the population of Melromarc are knights? With the current population size, compared to 12th century England there would be 187.5 knights in Melromarc that could be raised... Realistically. However, Magic fucking exists so that isn't as much of a problem. Assuming that Melromarc actually wants knights and is using their resources to field them we can bring up that number likely to around maybe 937 in the entire country. Now you might be asking 'well, why specifically 937?' Well it's because I've arbitrarily decided that the force multiplier for magic here would be 5, and historically armies weren't that large in the first place. The amount of squires each knight has (and is likely allowed to have at maximum as lords don't like paying for them in the first place) is around 2 bringing up Melromarc's effective cavalry to 2182.5 split up between knighthood orders, the palace, and various noblemen across the country.
This is of course not counting hedge knights and unrecognized persons claiming to be knights.
Mages. Whew boy, here we go again. Battle magic is something that takes ages to learn if you aren't cheating. It's also very expensive, and restricted based on social class. You must be a land owner gentry to learn magic at an official institution. Now you might ask 'why don't they just learn the fireball spell and be done with it?' because that isn't how magic works. Magic works half off a game system of learning the spell, and knowing how to cast it and real life studying and research into magic. Without a artifact to make it easier, the steps to spell casting are like this: Knowledge of the Spell, Intent to cast, Manipulation of magical energy, and finally Expelling the magic. For an example, when Vivian casts her spell to enhance clothes she Knows the effects she wants to apply to the clothes, then she acknowledges her intent to cast a spell, leading into manipulating her magic to gain the required attributes to bring what she desires, and so she casts the spell. If she fucked up, the spell would malfunction... Which would be bad, not that bad, but bad.
Now, you have a mage in your army that you conscripted out a first year combat class. You command him to cast a fireball. He knows the basics of what a fireball is, and has seen one demonstrated before, he wants to cast it, so begins manipulating what he thinks should be the spell, and then casts it... Detonating himself, you and everyone around you. Combat magic is much more volatile than regular magic and unless you want to invent the suicide bomber it's a bad idea to field untrained mages in your army. So effectively for military matters the amount of mages Melomarc could field is probably fluctuating around one hundred. Non combat mages are much more abundant and are usually nobility and gentry.
BUT WHAT ABOUT HEDGE MAGES? They are lunatics who learned magic through trial and error, they are feared by the larger population and hated. Most lose their minds or die. The few who don't are feared. You don't know much more than that in story.
Freemen. These are your landowners (such as Yeomen) and petty gentry who cant afford to pay the tax to not serve in the army. They are expected to keep up a specific level of martial skill, maintain their weapons and armor themselves. Usually they wear cuirass, gambesons, and simple helmets. They usually come in to varieties: Spearmen and Archers. Spearmen have spears and shields, with a dagger as their sidearm. Archers are equipped with bows, and have daggers for self defense. They make up the bulk of a 'levy' with poorer armed and barely trained serfs filling in the gap.
Why does it look like Melromarc is one bad sneeze from civil war? Because Melromarc is very badly managed in the apocalypse. Oh there's a bunch of other things too, like the shitty communication system between settlements, or the Church taking more and more power away from the crown. Or how inquisitorial the Three Heroes Church is by necessity driving out minority religions into outright rebels. You can even point towards the fact that they just left a brutal devastating war but it all comes back to the fact that Melromarc is badly managed jenga tower swaying in the wind. Hell, it might have happened anyway if you didn't actively pursue revolution.
What is the geography of Melromarc?
LOCATIONS: Melromarc's western border is connected to the land of Faubly. Schildfrieden is along the South Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Zeltoble is on the North Eastern border from Melromarc and border Siltvelt on their Western Border. Siltvelt borders Zeltoble and Schildfrieden from their East, and Q'ten Lo to their West. Q'ten Lo borders Siltvelt somewhere in the East in a period of vague isolationism.
(At least this is what I figured out after walking through the wiki for locations for a few days. Then I looked at who they were mentioned being 'surrounded by' and made some logical conclusions on where thing were. Actual geography info trumping surrounded by information.
This may be enough to actually make a map out of, simply to try and place where everything is but I'm actually pretty bad at making maps. But I think making one for Melromarc at the very least will be important.)
Shield Hero has nonsense geography. As in the thought of multiple nations and conflicts within the original work were literal after thoughts. There is no detailed map that shows anything more than a portion of the world, and there is no actual in depth descriptions on exactly where each nation is relative to each other. If they simply gave cardinal directions from each other then it would be fine. For the most part I've been thinking of a mixture of Mexico, Central and South America with Europe. Very humid, wet, swampy and generally things are very isolated. It's difficult to march by land much due to geography and it's hot.
From what I remember from the Manga Melromarc suffers from very hilly and mountainous terrain, along with what looked to be Mediterranean forests and what I assume to be swamps scattered around. The wiki puts the overall population of Melromarc at 750 000, I'm assuming this doesn't count slaves if it does that's actually really sad because that's not enough to maintain a large functioning state. Melromarc's capital which I'm going to be calling also Melromarc(because Castle Town is fucking stupid, give fucking names to your shit Shield Hero.), is likely built along a river that goes out to sea. I'm also assuming that Melromarc has access to the sea somewhere. Oh yeah, Melromarc is set up within a land of active volcanoes.
60 thousand of the population is in the capital. which means 1.25 % of Melomarc's entire population lives there. (Which is still a laughable population size, I'm going to assume that constant monster attacks and the wars has effectively culled the population of the planet to apocalyptic degrees).
How do they feed their people (and why is revolting so popular)? Serfdom and slave labor. Humans are not allowed to be bought and sold in Melromarc, but they are still property under law. You cannot brand a human but you can enslave him to a plot of land without trouble. To feed the large population centers, armies and themselves they need to force people to toil. So most people are serfs. If a serf makes enough money they can potentially buy their own land and become a Yeoman of some variety or multiple generations of recompense could allow them to become Gentry.
In theory the Serf toils for their lord, so they will protect them... In practicality the Serf either dies instantly to some monster somewhere while thinking 'where's the lord's men!' or doesn't need it at all and just sees most of their work get taken away as taxation. Slaves don't even get the benefit of protection, and are likely seen as disposable due to how monstrously cheap they are in setting. The agriculture of Melromarc is: Rice, Barley, Wheat, Oats and Wine with minor cash crops and vegetable farming. They follow a Manorial System. A local lord or priest oversees a large groups of serfs (and slaves) to direct a communal effort of agricultural farming. Usually the controller of a Manor would be a Baron but those who only had small holdings would simply be Manor Lords. Serfs also make up a small portion of the levy, often only equipped with spears, gambesons and if they're lucky a shield.
Melromarc in particular is unlucky because of how fucked up its geography is, much of its territory is simply autonomous, very disconnected and often the roads simply do not connect conveniently to each other in a timely fashion. Messages to get from one place to another can take weeks or months depending on distance and supernatural interference. Attempts have been made to attempt to centralize authority and improve communications but the nation is in too much of a political quagmire to pull off a massive project like that.
In Shield Hero the Church has immense amounts of political power... Which means they must have enough Manors to influence their position in the Feudal Society.
What even is the Military of Feudal Countries like Melromarc? Most of the military is reliant on Knights, Mages and Freemen. Knights are Gentry... Now you might be wondering how much of the population of Melromarc are knights? With the current population size, compared to 12th century England there would be 187.5 knights in Melromarc that could be raised... Realistically. However, Magic fucking exists so that isn't as much of a problem. Assuming that Melromarc actually wants knights and is using their resources to field them we can bring up that number likely to around maybe 937 in the entire country. Now you might be asking 'well, why specifically 937?' Well it's because I've arbitrarily decided that the force multiplier for magic here would be 5, and historically armies weren't that large in the first place. The amount of squires each knight has (and is likely allowed to have at maximum as lords don't like paying for them in the first place) is around 2 bringing up Melromarc's effective cavalry to 2182.5 split up between knighthood orders, the palace, and various noblemen across the country.
This is of course not counting hedge knights and unrecognized persons claiming to be knights.
Mages. Whew boy, here we go again. Battle magic is something that takes ages to learn if you aren't cheating. It's also very expensive, and restricted based on social class. You must be a land owner gentry to learn magic at an official institution. Now you might ask 'why don't they just learn the fireball spell and be done with it?' because that isn't how magic works. Magic works half off a game system of learning the spell, and knowing how to cast it and real life studying and research into magic. Without a artifact to make it easier, the steps to spell casting are like this: Knowledge of the Spell, Intent to cast, Manipulation of magical energy, and finally Expelling the magic. For an example, when Vivian casts her spell to enhance clothes she Knows the effects she wants to apply to the clothes, then she acknowledges her intent to cast a spell, leading into manipulating her magic to gain the required attributes to bring what she desires, and so she casts the spell. If she fucked up, the spell would malfunction... Which would be bad, not that bad, but bad.
Now, you have a mage in your army that you conscripted out a first year combat class. You command him to cast a fireball. He knows the basics of what a fireball is, and has seen one demonstrated before, he wants to cast it, so begins manipulating what he thinks should be the spell, and then casts it... Detonating himself, you and everyone around you. Combat magic is much more volatile than regular magic and unless you want to invent the suicide bomber it's a bad idea to field untrained mages in your army. So effectively for military matters the amount of mages Melomarc could field is probably fluctuating around one hundred. Non combat mages are much more abundant and are usually nobility and gentry.
BUT WHAT ABOUT HEDGE MAGES? They are lunatics who learned magic through trial and error, they are feared by the larger population and hated. Most lose their minds or die. The few who don't are feared. You don't know much more than that in story.
Freemen. These are your landowners (such as Yeomen) and petty gentry who cant afford to pay the tax to not serve in the army. They are expected to keep up a specific level of martial skill, maintain their weapons and armor themselves. Usually they wear cuirass, gambesons, and simple helmets. They usually come in to varieties: Spearmen and Archers. Spearmen have spears and shields, with a dagger as their sidearm. Archers are equipped with bows, and have daggers for self defense. They make up the bulk of a 'levy' with poorer armed and barely trained serfs filling in the gap.
Why does it look like Melromarc is one bad sneeze from civil war? Because Melromarc is very badly managed in the apocalypse. Oh there's a bunch of other things too, like the shitty communication system between settlements, or the Church taking more and more power away from the crown. Or how inquisitorial the Three Heroes Church is by necessity driving out minority religions into outright rebels. You can even point towards the fact that they just left a brutal devastating war but it all comes back to the fact that Melromarc is badly managed jenga tower swaying in the wind. Hell, it might have happened anyway if you didn't actively pursue revolution.
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