After-effects of the Last War [Archive] - Wizards Community

After-effects of the Last War [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Charles Phipps
08-29-05, 01:02 AM Hey, this is a thread to basically discuss what you think are the direct results of the Last War on the people of Khovaire. It occurred to me that we're dealing with a great deal in the sourcebooks on the national level but we're dealing very little with some of the effects on the local level.

1. A breakdown of law and order across the lands

The various nations are only now starting to lick their wounds from all the troubles that have started and there's clearly going to be a lot of places that there's going to be a serious lack of anything resembling organized structure due to all the death and mayhem.

2. A surplus of out of work individuals with military skill

As I mentioned in the Samurai 7 thread, it occurs to me there's going to be a lot of people who have a huge amount of military skill and also the weapons to use it likely (unless there was mass confiscation and destruction) that will have no lives but warfare to return to since they likely fought from childhood to adulthood.

I can see rebellions (we've already got several terrorist groups), bandit gangs that must be in the hundreds, and plenty of people who must be living hand and mouth.

3. People who've suffered serious war crimes

Rape, murder, theft, and the like are all things that happen during wartime even in the best armies. With a hundred years, everyone must have endured horrific treatment in most of the nations under these sorts of conditions.

4. A devastated economy

Does anyone even KNOW HOW (aside from a few dwarves and maybe elves) what a normal civilian economy is? The Mhor holds likely have been defaulted by all of the nations on loans, how will this effect their ability to conduct themselves as a market?

5. A surplus of weapons

Again....everyone and their mother must be able to get war material of some kind if they want it.
zambuka
08-29-05, 02:56 AM 1. A breakdown of law and order across the lands

The various nations are only now starting to lick their wounds from all the troubles that have started and there's clearly going to be a lot of places that there's going to be a serious lack of anything resembling organized structure due to all the death and mayhem.

Outside major populated centers and heavily travelled farmlands there would be plenty of bandits and wannabe warlords. But not to a serious degree.

2. A surplus of out of work individuals with military skill

As I mentioned in the Samurai 7 thread, it occurs to me there's going to be a lot of people who have a huge amount of military skill and also the weapons to use it likely (unless there was mass confiscation and destruction) that will have no lives but warfare to return to since they likely fought from childhood to adulthood.

I can see rebellions (we've already got several terrorist groups), bandit gangs that must be in the hundreds, and plenty of people who must be living hand and mouth.

They have just recovered from a major war. There is plenty of reconstruction and agricultural work to go around, plus most of the nations are maintaining reasonably sizeable standing armies and are keeping pretty decent reserves. Most warfare is more than just running up to your enemy and thumping the Six out of them. There are a host of support details that would give most soldiers skills useable after the war. Good sappers and construction workers would be in high demand.

These reserves, extra work and standing armies would keep the bandit gangs pretty low. Vigilantes looking for peace would keep the rest in line. Sure some terrorist groups would arise (Glass Tower in Sharn was destroyed by?) but that is just part of the war.

4. A devastated economy

Does anyone even KNOW HOW (aside from a few dwarves and maybe elves) what a normal civilian economy is? The Mhor holds likely have been defaulted by all of the nations on loans, how will this effect their ability to conduct themselves as a market?

This is where the houses come in. While the countries are devastated economically the houses have reaped a fortune by maintaining neutrality and providing services to all sides. Now they have the contracts to rebuild and in many case would be happily "volunteering" their services where the local government couldn't afford to provide their own.

Economically Karrnath and Aundair would feel the pinch the worst. Karrnath because some passages from the ECS suggest they have neglected some of the staple crops (they import a lot of their food, in spite of the huge amount of arrible land available). This land is probably claimed by some of Karrnath's bigger debtors. Aundair would have a high debt because of their investment in the war and the loss of large tracts of farmland to the Eldeen reaches. They do however have sufficient agriculture to keep the debtors relatively off their backs, it is just a matter of time to get everything running again.

Breland's debts are pretty much pen on paper debts, their coffers contain plenty of ready cash to keep things running and the loan repayments would be sufficient to keep the debtors happy, even though they wouldn't be as high as the rates say they should.

Thrane's location means trade goes through there feeding the economy quite happily, their textiles industry would be booming in the post war world as people seek more luxuries.

Cyre is now a non-issue in the economic world. They probably had the biggest debt but how to reclaim it? The Valenar sure wouldn't accept responsibility (even though they occupy what was once part of Cyre and the Cyrran exhiles wouldn't be able to scrape up enough money to make even half a payment.

Mror would be quite happy, the high loans make their currency more valuable, plus I picture them as having gold and other expensive mineral reserves sufficient to ruin the economy of any nation. Those defaulted debts and Mror's financial reserves and the threat they can present can help maintain their market power quite nicely.

Defaulting on many of the bigger loans will be better for the 5 Nation's economies than if they tried to pay the loans off. To pay the loans there would be serious inflation as the governments try to get as much money together as possible. Look at the difference between post WWI economy (the big depression), where the western world tried to pay off war debts, and post WWII (a major boom time, spurred in part by the Cold War) where many war debts were just defaulted and ignored. Plus the post WWI era western nations had far to many civil servants than their depleted population either needed or could support. Even then it was the better part of a decade between the end of WWI and the depression, in the mean time there was a bit of an economic boom.

5. A surplus of weapons

Again....everyone and their mother must be able to get war material of some kind if they want it.
Well the war isn't exactly over, just in a serious stay of fire, most nations are maintaining a standing army and would keep this weaponry in reserve and well guarded. Most ex soldiers would keep their weapons, out of duty and as a souvenier. Every one and their mother would know how to use these weapons responsibly.

Give it another 5 years of peace however and then you will start seeing a dangerous surplus of weaponry.
Charles Phipps
08-29-05, 03:24 AM Outside major populated centers and heavily travelled farmlands there would be plenty of bandits and wannabe warlords. But not to a serious degree.

Well we need to actually consider I suppose what we consider a breakdown in Law and Order. Dhakaani and Valenar are both "Rebel Provinces" that the kingdoms just decided to largely write off as losses, ditto the Eldeen Reaches (which seems to have no major social structure at all). Droam joins the "lawless" portions as well.

So I guess we're already past the stage of initial breakdown in the wartime scenario. Everyone is already preparing for the holding down of their territory. Only new Cyre and Thaliost are really preparing to break away and form their own nations.

Basically, it's a matter of "Can you in your weakened state do anything to stop me?"

They have just recovered from a major war. There is plenty of reconstruction and agricultural work to go around, plus most of the nations are maintaining reasonably sizeable standing armies and are keeping pretty decent reserves. Most warfare is more than just running up to your enemy and thumping the Six out of them. There are a host of support details that would give most soldiers skills useable after the war. Good sappers and construction workers would be in high demand.

On this end I'm not so sure. The life of a farmer is something that has a number of requirments to it. The first of which is that you have to have land in order to farm and the feudal system of all the lands is something that means it's not going to have much that's causally available. Breland aside in Parliament, you don't want to sell to peasants and cut away taxes from the nobility.

Even if, by some miracle, the land goes up for auction. It's going to be difficult to buy it all and pay for it on a soldier's nonsalary.

These reserves, extra work and standing armies would keep the bandit gangs pretty low. Vigilantes looking for peace would keep the rest in line. Sure some terrorist groups would arise (Glass Tower in Sharn was destroyed by?) but that is just part of the war.

True, though the potential for abuse is far more troubling. Civil Disturbance in a town or village could very easily become more military incidents as there will be no end of people used to being able to use violence to get their way and capable of dealing with soldiery.

This is where the houses come in. While the countries are devastated economically the houses have reaped a fortune by maintaining neutrality and providing services to all sides. Now they have the contracts to rebuild and in many case would be happily "volunteering" their services where the local government couldn't afford to provide their own.

On this end, I do concede. The Dragonmarked Houses will be reaping an incredible benefit here and the real question is how much will their power GROW as they probably find themselves wielding more power individually over people's lives than their governments. Eberron is possibly the first D&D setting to have cyberpunk style Supercorps.

Defaulting on many of the bigger loans will be better for the 5 Nation's economies than if they tried to pay the loans off. To pay the loans there would be serious inflation as the governments try to get as much money together as possible. Look at the difference between post WWI economy (the big depression), where the western world tried to pay off war debts, and post WWII (a major boom time, spurred in part by the Cold War) where many war debts were just defaulted and ignored. Plus the post WWI era western nations had far to many civil servants than their depleted population either needed or could support. Even then it was the better part of a decade between the end of WWI and the depression, in the mean time there was a bit of an economic boom.

True, the real question is who are the creditors and how much can they enforce their ruinous debts onto individual countries. The Holds and the Houses both could ruin any one of the Four Nations that refuses to pay up.

Well the war isn't exactly over, just in a serious stay of fire, most nations are maintaining a standing army and would keep this weaponry in reserve and well guarded. Most ex soldiers would keep their weapons, out of duty and as a souvenier. Every one and their mother would know how to use these weapons responsibly.

Give it another 5 years of peace however and then you will start seeing a dangerous surplus of weaponry.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Charles Phipps 08-29-05, 01:02 AM	Hey, this is a thread to basically discuss what you think are the direct results of the Last War on the people of Khovaire. It occurred to me that we're dealing with a great deal in the sourcebooks on the national level but we're dealing very little with some of the effects on the local level. 1. A breakdown of law and order across the lands The various nations are only now starting to lick their wounds from all the troubles that have started and there's clearly going to be a lot of places that there's going to be a serious lack of anything resembling organized structure due to all the death and mayhem. 2. A surplus of out of work individuals with military skill As I mentioned in the Samurai 7 thread, it occurs to me there's going to be a lot of people who have a huge amount of military skill and also the weapons to use it likely (unless there was mass confiscation and destruction) that will have no lives but warfare to return to since they likely fought from childhood to adulthood. I can see rebellions (we've already got several terrorist groups), bandit gangs that must be in the hundreds, and plenty of people who must be living hand and mouth. 3. People who've suffered serious war crimes Rape, murder, theft, and the like are all things that happen during wartime even in the best armies. With a hundred years, everyone must have endured horrific treatment in most of the nations under these sorts of conditions. 4. A devastated economy Does anyone even KNOW HOW (aside from a few dwarves and maybe elves) what a normal civilian economy is? The Mhor holds likely have been defaulted by all of the nations on loans, how will this effect their ability to conduct themselves as a market? 5. A surplus of weapons Again....everyone and their mother must be able to get war material of some kind if they want it.
zambuka 08-29-05, 02:56 AM	1. A breakdown of law and order across the lands The various nations are only now starting to lick their wounds from all the troubles that have started and there's clearly going to be a lot of places that there's going to be a serious lack of anything resembling organized structure due to all the death and mayhem. Outside major populated centers and heavily travelled farmlands there would be plenty of bandits and wannabe warlords. But not to a serious degree. 2. A surplus of out of work individuals with military skill As I mentioned in the Samurai 7 thread, it occurs to me there's going to be a lot of people who have a huge amount of military skill and also the weapons to use it likely (unless there was mass confiscation and destruction) that will have no lives but warfare to return to since they likely fought from childhood to adulthood. I can see rebellions (we've already got several terrorist groups), bandit gangs that must be in the hundreds, and plenty of people who must be living hand and mouth. They have just recovered from a major war. There is plenty of reconstruction and agricultural work to go around, plus most of the nations are maintaining reasonably sizeable standing armies and are keeping pretty decent reserves. Most warfare is more than just running up to your enemy and thumping the Six out of them. There are a host of support details that would give most soldiers skills useable after the war. Good sappers and construction workers would be in high demand. These reserves, extra work and standing armies would keep the bandit gangs pretty low. Vigilantes looking for peace would keep the rest in line. Sure some terrorist groups would arise (Glass Tower in Sharn was destroyed by?) but that is just part of the war. 4. A devastated economy Does anyone even KNOW HOW (aside from a few dwarves and maybe elves) what a normal civilian economy is? The Mhor holds likely have been defaulted by all of the nations on loans, how will this effect their ability to conduct themselves as a market? This is where the houses come in. While the countries are devastated economically the houses have reaped a fortune by maintaining neutrality and providing services to all sides. Now they have the contracts to rebuild and in many case would be happily "volunteering" their services where the local government couldn't afford to provide their own. Economically Karrnath and Aundair would feel the pinch the worst. Karrnath because some passages from the ECS suggest they have neglected some of the staple crops (they import a lot of their food, in spite of the huge amount of arrible land available). This land is probably claimed by some of Karrnath's bigger debtors. Aundair would have a high debt because of their investment in the war and the loss of large tracts of farmland to the Eldeen reaches. They do however have sufficient agriculture to keep the debtors relatively off their backs, it is just a matter of time to get everything running again. Breland's debts are pretty much pen on paper debts, their coffers contain plenty of ready cash to keep things running and the loan repayments would be sufficient to keep the debtors happy, even though they wouldn't be as high as the rates say they should. Thrane's location means trade goes through there feeding the economy quite happily, their textiles industry would be booming in the post war world as people seek more luxuries. Cyre is now a non-issue in the economic world. They probably had the biggest debt but how to reclaim it? The Valenar sure wouldn't accept responsibility (even though they occupy what was once part of Cyre and the Cyrran exhiles wouldn't be able to scrape up enough money to make even half a payment. Mror would be quite happy, the high loans make their currency more valuable, plus I picture them as having gold and other expensive mineral reserves sufficient to ruin the economy of any nation. Those defaulted debts and Mror's financial reserves and the threat they can present can help maintain their market power quite nicely. Defaulting on many of the bigger loans will be better for the 5 Nation's economies than if they tried to pay the loans off. To pay the loans there would be serious inflation as the governments try to get as much money together as possible. Look at the difference between post WWI economy (the big depression), where the western world tried to pay off war debts, and post WWII (a major boom time, spurred in part by the Cold War) where many war debts were just defaulted and ignored. Plus the post WWI era western nations had far to many civil servants than their depleted population either needed or could support. Even then it was the better part of a decade between the end of WWI and the depression, in the mean time there was a bit of an economic boom. 5. A surplus of weapons Again....everyone and their mother must be able to get war material of some kind if they want it. Well the war isn't exactly over, just in a serious stay of fire, most nations are maintaining a standing army and would keep this weaponry in reserve and well guarded. Most ex soldiers would keep their weapons, out of duty and as a souvenier. Every one and their mother would know how to use these weapons responsibly. Give it another 5 years of peace however and then you will start seeing a dangerous surplus of weaponry.
Charles Phipps 08-29-05, 03:24 AM	Outside major populated centers and heavily travelled farmlands there would be plenty of bandits and wannabe warlords. But not to a serious degree. Well we need to actually consider I suppose what we consider a breakdown in Law and Order. Dhakaani and Valenar are both "Rebel Provinces" that the kingdoms just decided to largely write off as losses, ditto the Eldeen Reaches (which seems to have no major social structure at all). Droam joins the "lawless" portions as well. So I guess we're already past the stage of initial breakdown in the wartime scenario. Everyone is already preparing for the holding down of their territory. Only new Cyre and Thaliost are really preparing to break away and form their own nations. Basically, it's a matter of "Can you in your weakened state do anything to stop me?" They have just recovered from a major war. There is plenty of reconstruction and agricultural work to go around, plus most of the nations are maintaining reasonably sizeable standing armies and are keeping pretty decent reserves. Most warfare is more than just running up to your enemy and thumping the Six out of them. There are a host of support details that would give most soldiers skills useable after the war. Good sappers and construction workers would be in high demand. On this end I'm not so sure. The life of a farmer is something that has a number of requirments to it. The first of which is that you have to have land in order to farm and the feudal system of all the lands is something that means it's not going to have much that's causally available. Breland aside in Parliament, you don't want to sell to peasants and cut away taxes from the nobility. Even if, by some miracle, the land goes up for auction. It's going to be difficult to buy it all and pay for it on a soldier's nonsalary. These reserves, extra work and standing armies would keep the bandit gangs pretty low. Vigilantes looking for peace would keep the rest in line. Sure some terrorist groups would arise (Glass Tower in Sharn was destroyed by?) but that is just part of the war. True, though the potential for abuse is far more troubling. Civil Disturbance in a town or village could very easily become more military incidents as there will be no end of people used to being able to use violence to get their way and capable of dealing with soldiery. This is where the houses come in. While the countries are devastated economically the houses have reaped a fortune by maintaining neutrality and providing services to all sides. Now they have the contracts to rebuild and in many case would be happily "volunteering" their services where the local government couldn't afford to provide their own. On this end, I do concede. The Dragonmarked Houses will be reaping an incredible benefit here and the real question is how much will their power GROW as they probably find themselves wielding more power individually over people's lives than their governments. Eberron is possibly the first D&D setting to have cyberpunk style Supercorps. Defaulting on many of the bigger loans will be better for the 5 Nation's economies than if they tried to pay the loans off. To pay the loans there would be serious inflation as the governments try to get as much money together as possible. Look at the difference between post WWI economy (the big depression), where the western world tried to pay off war debts, and post WWII (a major boom time, spurred in part by the Cold War) where many war debts were just defaulted and ignored. Plus the post WWI era western nations had far to many civil servants than their depleted population either needed or could support. Even then it was the better part of a decade between the end of WWI and the depression, in the mean time there was a bit of an economic boom. True, the real question is who are the creditors and how much can they enforce their ruinous debts onto individual countries. The Holds and the Houses both could ruin any one of the Four Nations that refuses to pay up. Well the war isn't exactly over, just in a serious stay of fire, most nations are maintaining a standing army and would keep this weaponry in reserve and well guarded. Most ex soldiers would keep their weapons, out of duty and as a souvenier. Every one and their mother would know how to use these weapons responsibly. Give it another 5 years of peace however and then you will start seeing a dangerous surplus of weaponry.