Might & Magic Army
Moving on to the land powers of Windemere, this category is easier to divide and explain than sea and air. The reason is because they get involved in a lot more events and they’ve been around for longer than the other two. Sky travel is fairly new and naval battles came after people had been fighting on the land. So there has been a longer time to fine tune the various systems and establish similarities between them. For example, there is a similar hierarchy in every army even if the titles and duties differ.
Another reason an army will come up more often than the others is because of the protagonist connections. Many warriors were soldiers or guards, so they have that kind of training. There is the fairly common ‘savant’ hero who appears after training alone or with an elder. Yet, that elder might be a former soldier and you get a sense of the military system by how they operate and talk. As long as they have a personality that is. Even if a hero isn’t from that world, fantasy authors always use guards for something when a city is introduced. It could be as innocuous as talking to the guy at the gate or more complicated like getting arrested for a bar fight. The army, which tends to include guards who could be considered the reserves, is around in some fashion when the navy or air forces might never come up.
In Windemere specifically, most armies are similar and differ mostly on tactics, weapons, and special forces. A reason for this is because there have been numerous global events that caused a global unification of military might. So the various races learned from each other and adopted ideas that they liked. Barbarians still charge in screaming, but now they have javelin throwers and use a squad system in some battles. Dwarves open a battle the same way, but many of them use an armored wall technique or boulders that they can send down a hill. These tactics aren’t all that is used, but it shows that the races have learned from each other. In fact, the armies that use basic and straightforward strategies tend to be those of warlords or anyone trying to conquer. I guess after so many events nearly wiped every one out, the races of Windemere have a great love of defense. Although there is one group that goes against that, but they’re tomorrow.
Now, I did mention special forces, which is a big variable. These would include your casters, battle priests, paladins, griffin riders, shock troops, and whatever else would be more than your average soldier. Many times these are area or racial specific. For example, halfling armies tend to have a small squad of thieves who sneak around to take weapons from enemies and sabotage things. They are the only people who do this because it suits their natural abilities. As far as area, you don’t have to look further than the Gaian griffin riders. Without the mountain, they wouldn’t have those because the griffins wouldn’t have anywhere to stay.
So, armies definitely have an influence and role in Windemere stories. Nearly every civilized race and society has one. There is one exception to this. The elves don’t have their own army. One can find them in the military of other kingdoms and even species if they live there. The reason for this is because the elves have no central government, so they wouldn’t have their own military. It’s a small wrinkle in the world that nobody really pays attention to. It all comes from them starting as a demon-corrupted species that conquered the world. They refuse to create their own central government out of fear of being a threat once again. In fact, one could say the Hejinn (first elves) are the ones responsible for the current army systems.
Legends of Windemere 
Interesting about the elves and their refusal to create a centralized government. I can understand why.
Are there battle priests dedicated to specific gods? Are battle priests mostly casters?
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Thought it was a nice twist. Most fantasy worlds have the elves living in the most gorgeous locations and being highly advanced compared to others. Figured I’d go in a different direction.
Battle priests aren’t casters even though they use spells. Casters are reserved for those who use arcane magic that stems from the world around them and their own body. Priests use their own aura along with the energy granted to them by their worshipped deity. Battle priests do need a specific god or goddess to follow too. The arcane equivalent would be your Battle Casters. Best examples would be Aedyn Karwyn and Nyx. As you can tell, battle priests aren’t as strong offensively, but they make up for this by having healing magic.
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Healing magic would be good! Makes sense that they would need the help of the deity they worship. Love the notion of battle priests. 🙂
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Healing magic tends to be their forte more than combat. Arcane casters are more destructive, so healing gets kind of weird with them.
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Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Charles Yallowitz shares the various armed forces that are in play in Windemere.. I quite like the idea of the halflings…
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Thanks for the reblog. 😁
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Pleasure Charles.. xx
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Really cool ideas. Cavalry seems to be an early form of shock troops. I like the way you bring the magic into the mix. Even the fantastic creatures like Griffins.
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We’ll get more into the griffins next week when I touch on the air forces. 😀 It’s fun coming up with these things and adding magic. With it being common, it forces me to come up with unique tactics and regulations. Interesting thing with the Windemere military forces is that many go into another similar career when their time is done. So the land forces have closer connections to each other than the others.
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I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m finding this series interesting. Guards as reserves makes perfect sense to me, and I kind of wrote some that way myself. You didn’t address submarines, are there any around?
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That technology hasn’t appeared yet. There isn’t much of a reason for them since you have merfolk, sea elves, and artifacts that allow people to operate underwater. Armies and navies don’t stray very far from their kingdoms in Windemere. At the very least, they don’t cross the oceans unless something requires all of the mortal-kind to unite. So, needing to travel by water without being spotted isn’t a military necessity.
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Years ago, in something unworthy of sharing, I wrote about pirates that had a submarine. It was fun, but I shudder to think of my writing back then.
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I have plenty of stories like that. Always wondered if submarines would work for pirates. You have stealth, but boarding requires emerging and connecting quickly. I guess sinking the ship and salvaging as it sinks would work.
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Most real ones have a deck gun. Surface close, blow the top deck off your victim, then board under the threat of torpedoes. To make matters worse, mine was an abandoned Japanese sub that really did hold three float planes capable of small bombing missions. They made two of them and intended to close the Panama Canal with them, but it never happened.
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Dang app keeps crashing before I finish responding. Sounds like an interesting set up for a story. I guess I was thinking more traditional pirates, which doesn’t make sense with modern tech.
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You’d have to go back into the last part of the 20th century, but it could work. Then again, in science fiction or fantasy you can take the concept a bit further.
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True. Although, there’s a lot of deadly stuff down there for submarines to deal with. Wonder if fantasy people would even consider putting themselves in a metal can under the water when sea monsters are a thing.
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Might be fun to try as a steampunk story. You can have a bit of magic and some sea monsters there.
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I’m always apprehensive about introducing steampunk to Windemere feels like it would have to be everywhere the moment I use it.
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Maybe it could be your next series in a different world. I may revisit it myself one day in the distant future.
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Maybe. Honestly, I’m juggling so many that I’m always iffy on introducing a new one.
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Now we’re back to, “Mortal Combat!”
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If only. Most of my ideas connect to each other. Not as much now since I’ve pulled the superheroes out of Windemere, but that took about 1/3 of my stuff with it. The plan has always been to create intricate worlds through multiple stories that will culminate in a grand finale tale. It stems from reading a lot of comics and Forgotten Realms books where adventures were solitary, but still in the same world. I really want to leave behind dimensions like that.
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I think it’s cool to use one world in multiple settings. I don’t have the patience to write one though.
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It’s a challenge and requires a lot of checking. Monsters, cities, and other setting pieces need to remain consistent across the series. I’m sure I’ll mess up from time to time. For example, I know the Dawn Fang capital is mentioned somewhere in Legends. Just forgot how I spelled it and want book, so I need to scan for it before I start in on that other series.
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I have so many problems like that, and I’m not writing a series.
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Very interesting take on armies. I never knew elves didn’t participate.
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They participate by joining the other armies. Elves simply don’t have their own kingdom, so they don’t have any individual military presence.
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🙂
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Nice to learn more, Charles! I once thought I’d make one world with multiple stories but I think I’m just going to do a trilogy for this one and take my other characters I’d planned on to another world. The reason being, I don’t think those characters would merge too well with this world. They need to have a different sort of world.
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I had that issue with my superheroes. They were on Earth for a while, but then I put them in Windemere. Didn’t work out any better, so now I’m putting them back on Earth. Hopefully it works better this time.
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