Baronial Military Affairs

THE BARONY

In the Barony, the nominal power is in the capital, but this is not concretely enforced and the nobility have more or less uncontested military control over their territories. The Baronial Capital traditionally does not have its own armed forces and relies on celebrated mercenary companies to defend it and to keep the nobility in line, but the Baroness is trying hard to change this and modernise along the lines of the professionalised White City military. This reform has seen lots of pushback from the nobles, who (correctly) see it as a curtailing of their power. 

The Barony traditionally does not have large standing armies, and is not used to thinking about total war. The basic 'unit' of military capacity in most people's minds in something like a kill squad - between 5 and 20 people, trained or untrained, with weapons and specific orders to kill a particular person or family. When Baronials think 'soldiers', this is what they picture. These squads are usually deployed by the nobility with broad authority, under the command of a trusted professional fixer. When the nobles war against one another, which they often do, it is usually a low intensity counterinsurgency type of conflict along the borders, with lots of small units hunting and hiding from one another. The violence is often intense and punitive, and torture, atrocities, and collective punishment are not at all unheard of. In theory, this is usually NOT directed at civilian populations, although enforcement of this differs between nobles.

In addition to these kill squads, nobles typically retain a small force of highly trained veterans - generally ex mercenaries - as house and shock troops. Most nobility would keep less than fifty of these, and very wealthy ones might have two or three hundred. They are typically kept on retainer, given high quality equipment, and regular training. If these troops are deployed, it means that two nobles are fighting for permanent territorial expansion - this is not unheard of, but it is rare. The nobility themselves are usually trained for combat by their mercenary retainers, but this is for pragmatic and not formal legal reasons. There is no institution of knighthood, and the nobility are expected to be organisers, planners, and strategic and logistical thinkers more than they are dangerous personal combatants.

Low intensity kill team conflict is not really considered warfare by the nobles - it's something like diplomatic pressure. All of these actions are essentially deniable, and nobles often will not know exactly who is targeting them until one of their enemies starts making political demands.

There is a formal, legalistic declaration of war between noble houses, but it takes the form of a 'War of Assassins' - an agreement to begin trying to kill one another by any means necessary. Assassination without a declaration of this sort is frowned on, and most nobles honour this arrangement, which has deep cultural importance. Those found to have violated these terms are brought to the capital by their peers, and executed by public torture. 

MERCENARIES

Mercenaries are a big part of the culture in the Barony. They come in two flavours, Normals and Professionals. Normals are just kill-squads that operate for cash and without specific allegiance. They are usually of better-than-average quality, and have training, equipment, and various special skills, but they are not well respected (they can be very well paid, if they are good at their jobs).

Professionals are field troops, and a company is usually three or four hundred strong. They sometimes have cavalry, but always feature a hard core of experienced and extremely dangerous heavy infantry. Professionals have historically been the kingmakers in the Barony, although the balance of power is nominally kept by the companies being legally barred from constructing fortifications of their own. The Baronial Capital was historically defended (and launched its own campaigns using) four companies of decorated Professionals. The Baroness herself was a captain in one of these companies before she went into politics. 

THE CAPITAL ARMY

The Baroness has studied the concept of total war by watching the military campaigns of the White City to the north. Her number one priority is to get the Barony dangerous enough to guarantee political independence - a difficult proposition, considering the nature of its northern neighbour. She has recently begun a project of 'modernisation' of the old mercenary system in the capital, and has brought the old companies together under a single banner. She has also set up a professionalised training program for citizens that wish to be soldiers, and begun to manufacture of 'Baronial Nationalism' - a calculated shift away from personal identification with the provinces and kingdoms, and towards a Capital-based identity. The Capital means progress, sophistication, equality between citizens, prosperity, etc. Don't you want to live in the Capital? All of this is currently in the very early stages of development. Many nobles are wary.

THE NOMAD KINGDOMS

Divided into two nations, the Northern and Southern Nomads. Those in the north have strong cultural and diplomatic ties with the Barony, and trade flows along their shared border. The Southern Kingdom are stranger, wilder, and thought to be more unpredictable (and thus more dangerous). 

The nomads famously train their entire adult population to ride and to shoot the bow. Their populations are not extremely dense, but they can form into very large (by Baronial standards) armies quickly if their leaders decide that they need to. There were terrible wars in the past between the settled Barony and large nomad armies. The Old Capital used to protect the frontier, but after its disappearance the Baronials in the region had to rely on fortifications and political manoeuvring to keep themselves safe from ambitious nomad nobles. The construction of extensive walls, hard points, and fortifications in depth have helped with this. The Southern Baronial nobility cooperate on the policing of the region. The many decades of peace and lucrative trade have somewhat dulled the memories of conflict between the two nations.

The Nomads armies are almost entirely cavalry, and they rely on the bow more than on lance and sword charges, although they are capable of fighting in melee where required. They lack heavy infantry, and rarely make use of mercenaries. The famous Nomad Errants, wealthy young nobles who travel the world to know themselves and become tempered adults, often form a hard core of heavily armed and armoured elites at the centre of a nomad force. The Nomads are fond of duels between commanders to minimise casualties. They hate assassins and poisoners, and do terrible things to those that they catch.

The Southern Nomads practice honour raiding and slave-taking, and are constantly harrying their northern neighbours. They are famous in the Barony (where they are rarely seen, if ever) for their cruelty and barbarism, although this is certainly heavily influenced by the propaganda of the Northerners. They are touched by the sun and the stars. They fashion bones and drink blood. They travel from places to place in vast, crawling metal fortresses. They interbreed with the Ice Giants; they are tall and hungry; they are cannibals, what else is there to eat on the ice? Their Smiths never wake up from their nightmare trances. 

The Barony has never faced an invasion of Southern Nomads in its recorded history, and so their military capabilities are largely unknown.