Lunar Imperial Caravans to Kralorela

[Noita]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

The problem with wagons across Pent is wheel breakage.  There's no trees to replace them with and far too many places where they'd break.  Much better to rely solely on pack animals for this caravan.

No repair spells? Blimey life is grim up North.

[jajagappa]

6 minutes ago, Iskallor said:

No repair spells?

They'll only hold up for a little ways - really short-term duration.

Enchantments would work better, but likely pricey vs. the cost of a few more pack animals (and the wagons still need draft animals and food for the draft animals).

[Noita]

Just now, jajagappa said:

They'll only hold up for a little ways - really short-term duration.

 

Why short term? In Runequest it fixes my broken sword properly. Why not a wheel?

I think folk have a tendancy to put our world problems in to Glorantha far too much. 

Why is Pent too rough for wagons anyway? Might be awesome.

[jajagappa]

28 minutes ago, Iskallor said:

In Runequest it fixes my broken sword properly. Why not a wheel?

I was remembering the spell as temporal rather than instant.  So, yes, would repair a wheel.

What I'd probably say, though, is that such a repair does not restore the wheel to its full structural strength.  It's a little weaker with each break and magical Repair and eventually it just can't be repaired.  YGMV though.

32 minutes ago, Iskallor said:

Why is Pent too rough for wagons anyway?

Similar to North American prairie - looks nice and flat and open on a map.  Reality is rough, broken ground with treacherous creek beds where wagons would get stuck, prairie dog holes, badlands with sheer drops.  At a minimum, wagons will be substantially slower trying to navigate these obstacles and will make you vulnerable to other dangers for a longer period of time - it's a two-year venture as it is without that delay.

 

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

I was remembering the spell as temporal rather than instant.  So, yes, would repair a wheel.

What I'd probably say, though, is that such a repair does not restore the wheel to its full structural strength.  It's a little weaker with each break and magical Repair and eventually it just can't be repaired.  YGMV though.

Similar to North American prairie - looks nice and flat and open on a map.  Reality is rough, broken ground with treacherous creek beds where wagons would get stuck, prairie dog holes, badlands with sheer drops.  At a minimum, wagons will be substantially slower trying to navigate these obstacles and will make you vulnerable to other dangers for a longer period of time - it's a two-year venture as it is without that delay.

 

I do not believe the Etyries Caravan uses wheeled transport.

[Byll]

When I Googled this a while ago it seemed that there was not much difference between weight conveyed per draft animal using wagon-and-four and pack-animal. 

Mongol bows were laminate with the main part being made from bamboo (which the Pentans will remind us is a sort of grass), sinew and horn, held together with animal based glue.

[Ian Cooper]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

I do not believe the Etyries Caravan uses wheeled transport.

The horse-collar is unlikely in a bronze age setting, it's much more likely that we have the yoke or a throat-girth harness. The former is for oxen, slow at 10 miles a day, and two oxen pulling a cart carry about 1000lbs the same as two pack mules. A throat girth-harness is inefficient and has a limit for two horses of about 1100lbs, about the same as two pack mules. After the horse-collar is invented a horse can pull about 2500lbs, which allows greater efficiency than a pack animal.

In addition, you are still really restricted to roads (if you don't like fixing broken wagons), and low gradients, even when you do opt for a cart.

Generally, the ox-cart was used by the farmer, who also used it for his plow team, to take goods to market. Otherwise in this era, you use pack animals, such as mules, for long-distance cargo if you couldn't go by water. Water was always the best choice, if you had it.

[M Helsdon]

33 minutes ago, Ian Cooper said:

The horse-collar is unlikely in a bronze age setting, it's much more likely that we have the yoke or a throat-girth harness. The former is for oxen, slow at 10 miles a day, and two oxen pulling a cart carry about 1000lbs the same as two pack mules. A throat girth-harness is inefficient and has a limit for two horses of about 1100lbs, about the same as two pack mules. After the horse-collar is invented a horse can pull about 2500lbs, which allows greater efficiency than a pack animal.

In addition, you are still really restricted to roads (if you don't like fixing broken wagons), and low gradients, even when you do opt for a cart.

Generally, the ox-cart was used by the farmer, who also used it for his plow team, to take goods to market. Otherwise in this era, you use pack animals, such as mules, for long-distance cargo if you couldn't go by water. Water was always the best choice, if you had it.

Concur.

Something I've been writing for my War in Glorantha project may be useful:

Logistics: Supply Caravans

An army train typically consists of at least a hundred wagons, each pulled by eight mules or a team of oxen and loaded with food, fodder for the troops and animals, and several wagons carrying military supplies – replacement weapons and armor. Some carry the regimental payroll in locked bronze strongboxes.

A garrison supply caravan tends to be smaller – around ten wagons, and is accompanied by an armed guard. A complement for ten wagons is twenty muleskinners, a scribe and caravan master (often a regimental quartermaster) and several files of soldiers, depending on the perceived risk of ambush. Sections of cavalry may be added to supplement the protection of the convoy.

Each wagon carries an average load of 1100-1200 lbs. of food or equipment.

A two-wheeled cart can carry 600-800 lbs.

While the use of oxen allows armies to move larger loads, it slows the rate of movement to two miles an hour for five hours before the animals become exhausted, and then on a good road. However, oxen can subsist on a diet of grass.

Wagons generate their own logistical burdens: drivers, and craftsmen to repair them, who in turn require tools and lumber, all of which further increase the logistics load on the army.

Beyond the network of reliable roads, mule and donkey trains are employed. An army train would number six to eight hundred mules.

A garrison supply caravan reliant on mules usually consists of at least forty mules, five muleskinners, three mounted officers and two files of soldiers. Lunar Deer may replace some of the mules as meat-on-the hoof, being slaughtered at the end of the journey.

A mule supply caravan carries approximately 5200 lbs. of food and other supplies.

Five horses or mules can carry the load of a single ox-cart and travel at around four miles an hour for eight hours, on a good road.

Over very rough terrain bearers may be employed instead, often slaves. A human bearer in good health can carry 60-80 pounds for ten to fifteen miles in a day, so a caravan reliant on bearers requires at least eighty and often a hundred, to allow for loses along the way. However, if the slaves must be shackled, then travel will be slower, with the bearers consuming more of the supplies they carry.

Navigable rivers provide an often faster alternative. A barge can carry far more than a wagon.

 

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Most of the above is derived from reading about Greek and Roman logistics, plus a little from the supply caravans in Griffin Mountain.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2016 by M Helsdon

[Evilroddy]

Good discussion to date. Thanks for all the feed back.

By my reckoning, counting hexes along the route from Palbar to Jangi-Shar in the AA Altlas, the journey is about 275 hexes or about 1400 Km. A caravan with wagons traveling at 5 Km/hr. for six hours a day covers 30 Km/day and could complete such a journey in 50-55 days.  If a caravan with just pack animals can travel 5 Km/hr. for eight hours a day, it will cover the distance in 35-40 days. Allowing for extra time due to trading stops along the way and fording rivers, etc. a pack-animal-only caravan is too fast for the biennial caravan constraint. Such caravans could make it to the Kingdom of Ignorance and back in two seasons. Thus I added wagons and carts to slow things down in order to extend the travel time to match the requirement of a two-year trip. 

While not wanting to ignore the cultural and religious merits of using wagons in Glorantha, there is plenty of evidence for extensive wagon use without roads/tracks by nomadic peoples and colonists in terrestrial Eurasia and America. So I am not convinced that wagons and carts could not make such a journey. Steppe land is not treeless by any stretch of the imagination. In my game Pentlanders make extensive use of carts and even some wagons to carry yurts and religious paraphernalia as mobile shrines.

I disagree with the argument about no wood being available in the steppes of Pent. Trees will be found near rivers and streams and where the topography of the land allows for the accumulation of rare water in the aquifer near the surface.  Now trees would definitely be a limited resource and thus Pentans might be pretty put out if lunar caravans took trees for their own use, but I do not think that no trees would be available to the caravan. With a supply of spare wheels and dried wood, plus time to dry and cure Pentan wood, a caravan with wagons and carts could make the journey in good form. Even if they had to cannibalize a wagon or two for spare wood.

Something which I neglected to mention in my earlier posts was that about 15% of the wagons used are actually flat-bottomed boats filled with cargo and carried on wheeled frames. These boats are used by the caravan for crossing rivers and ferrying cargo and dismantled wagon/carts across major water obstacles. Without such boats transiting the rivers of Pent would be nearly impossible as fords could not be counted upon to be passable on a regular basis. Many of the carts are wood-framed wicker carts like those of terrestrial Ancient Elam and thus easily transportable across a river. The non-boat wagons are more robust affairs but are designed to be easily dismantled and reassembled much like terrestrial Assurian wagons and heavy chariots were. 

So if the argument is a cultural or religious argument against wagons/carts and draught animals, I'm all ears. But arguments based on the impossibility of using wagons/carts are less persuasive in my mind since 'human' ingenuity is a powerful force in the Lunar gestalt apparently. 'Human' is used to connote all sentient races in Genertela, not just humans.

I am now in the process of re-engineering the caravan. I will scale it up to a degree as per suggestions above. But, in order to slow the caravan down to conform to the minimal biennial constraint I think wagons will have to be part of the equation, or the caravan could easily complete a round trip in two seasons and thus one year. If someone can demonstrate a sound cultural or religious reason for excluding them then fine; I will be convinced. But then I will have to find another anchor to slow the caravans down. Any suggestions on such alternative inhibitors to fast movement would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and thank you for your guidance.

Evilroddy.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Evilroddy

[metcalph]

You could have a moon-boat or two in the caravan (usually tethered to the pack beasts) but from time to time made to scout the surrounding lands.

[Pentallion]

First off, 1 hex = 5 miles/8km so your math is off.  a 275 hex journey would be 2,200 km.  A loaded pack animal moves at 5km/hr, but must rest 10 minutes of every hour and also a half hour to feed every two to three hours.  This means its real movement time is about 4km/hr.  An 8 hour day traveling covers only 32km. (which happens to be exactly 4 hexes)  that means, if they don't stop anywhere for anything, it takes 10 weeks to make that journey on flat terrain.  However, it's not flat terrain.  There are hills and a mountain pass and several rivers to fjord.  Getting thousands of pack animals across a river is probably going to take more than a single day and you've got four rivers to cross.  Looking at the map, that mountain pass adds two weeks to the journey right there.  And, of course, you're going to set up markets along the way and trade with the Pentans because they have furs, slaves and magic items to trade for metal working and slaves from the Lunar Empire.  There are ten arrows (tribes) and you'll probably stop for each one and spend several days.  That's easily four or five more weeks.  Then you have to stop for holy day ceremonies. 

Even without wagons to slow you down, you'll be hardpressed to make the journey in two seasons.  Leave Sea, arrive sometime in Earth.  Spend the rest of Earth, Dark and Storm in the Kingdom of Ignorance because it's not a good time to travel and head back next Sea Season, getting home in Earth.

 

You could cut some time off the journey by setting up markets at the first three river crossings.  That way, trade with the nearby Arrows while getting the pack animals across the rivers. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by Pentallion

[Jeff]

29 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

30 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

First off, 1 hex = 5 miles/8km so your math is off.  a 275 hex journey would be 2,200 km.  A loaded pack animal moves at 5km/hr, but must rest 10 minutes of every hour and also a half hour to feed every two to three hours.  This means its real movement time is about 4km/hr.  An 8 hour day traveling covers only 32km. (which happens to be exactly 4 hexes)  that means, if they don't stop anywhere for anything, it takes 10 weeks to make that journey on flat terrain.  However, it's not flat terrain.  There are hills and a mountain pass and several rivers to fjord.  Getting thousands of pack animals across a river is probably going to take more than a single day and you've got four rivers to cross.  Looking at the map, that mountain pass adds two weeks to the journey right there.  And, of course, you're going to set up markets along the way and trade with the Pentans because they have furs, slaves and magic items to trade for metal working and slaves from the Lunar Empire.  There are ten arrows (tribes) and you'll probably stop for each one and spend several days.  That's easily four or five more weeks.  Then you have to stop for holy day ceremonies. 

Even without wagons to slow you down, you'll be hardpressed to make the journey in two seasons.  Leave Sea, arrive sometime in Earth.  Spend the rest of Earth, Dark and Storm in the Kingdom of Ignorance because it's not a good time to travel and head back next Sea Season, getting home in Earth.

 

You could cut some time off the journey by setting up markets at the first three river crossings.  That way, trade with the nearby Arrows while getting the pack animals across the rivers. 

This is all more or less correct. There is no road through Pent and the animals need to graze - there's no way you can carry enough fodder (and there is no system of caravanserai like along the Manirian Road). For much of the distance, a caravan is lucky to average 2 hexes in a day. You leave in Fire Season, arrive late Earth Season. There are lots of tribes to curry favor with, Pure Horse People to appease, etc. 

Once the caravan arrives in the Kingdom of Ignorance, the journey has not stopped. The caravan is a big event (and likely only one is allowed every two years by dictate of the Exarch of Ignorance) - and this is a big opportunity for not only selling your Pelorian goods, but acquiring Kralorelan luxury goods as well. The next three seasons are spent trading, bribing, and organizing. You set out the following Fire Season and return to Palbar in Earth Season.

[Evilroddy]

Pentallion:

Oops! I really do need glasses! OK, back to the drawing board it is. Thanks for the correction, he said rather sheepishly!

Jeff:

Thanks for the ideas. Your choice of words for the start of your second paragraph has me wondering again if the caravan or parts of it travel around the Kingdom of Ignorance? You say that, "Once the caravan arrives in the Kingdom of Ignorance, the journey has not stopped." This would seem to imply there is continuing travel (journey) within the K of Ignorance. Am I misunderstanding your intent here? 

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy the Blind.

 

[Jeff]

The caravan goes on to Jangi-Shar in Grombol province. But of course, the Etyries merchants need to appease the local mandarins and trade with them for return gods, provide support to the local Lunar Temples (Seven Mothers, Etyries, Hon-eel, and the Red Goddess can all be found there), and likely there is an annual delegation bringing gifts to Can Shu in Su Lo Cho. And then there is the schemes Boven Mada Kelen Nomada. There is a lot of stuff going on that involves the Eytries Caravan.

[M Helsdon]

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

You could have a moon-boat or two in the caravan (usually tethered to the pack beasts) but from time to time made to scout the surrounding lands.

Not really: outside the Glowline, Moon Boats are unable to move during the Dying or Black Phases of the Moon. So the entire caravan would have to halt or split on those days. Not a wise thing to do in Pent.

[Byll]

I don't have a problem with there being wagons on the Transpentan Caravan, but since they seem to complicate the logistics maybe it would be worth coming up with a list of advantages over pack-horse transport. This isn't a great list but somebody might improve it.

• potential to carry a single item too heavy for a single horse
• potential to use some wagon-beds as boats at river crossings as mentioned by the OP on this page
• potential to carry additional low density loads over short distances more efficiently (such as fodder into inhospitable areas)
• covered wagon offers some protection from the elements when halted, without pitching/striking camp
• possibly less injurious to the draught animals than pack saddles over a long journey.
•  if Yelm does it every day, there must be something in it

[Noita]

5 hours ago, Byll said:

I don't have a problem with there being wagons on the Transpentan Caravan, but since they seem to complicate the logistics maybe it would be worth coming up with a list of advantages over pack-horse transport. This isn't a great list but somebody might improve it.

• potential to carry a single item too heavy for a single horse
• potential to use some wagon-beds as boats at river crossings as mentioned by the OP on this page
• potential to carry additional low density loads over short distances more efficiently (such as fodder into inhospitable areas)
• covered wagon offers some protection from the elements when halted, without pitching/striking camp
• possibly less injurious to the draught animals than pack saddles over a long journey.
•  if Yelm does it every day, there must be something in it

*Because it sounds cool and fits the OP's game.