Talk:Kalchichi
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OK, hate to be a sourpuss as you raise up the kobold race, but there's a world of difference between inventing gunpowder and rolling out the cannons. China had gunpowder in the 9th century, but didn't have the crudest of handheld gunpowder weapons until the 13th (and these were little more than a tube with gunpowder at its base and a bundle of arrows stuffed down the barrel!) so going from gunpowder to arquebuses in one kobold generation is straining credibility. Can I suggest the following alternative?
- Someone invents gunpowder (could be anyone; kobold ingenuity comes later...)
- For the next few hundred years people use gunpowder for bombs (my favourite name for early gunpowder bombs is the Chinese 'Heaven-Shaking Thunder-Crash Bomb') and for crude artillery pieces. An arms race develops in which various countries attempt to build bigger and bigger artillery pieces.
- The kobolds acquire one artillery piece and begin to reverse engineer it with an ingenious piece of lateral thinking. They come out with a handheld version, which rapidly develops into the musket (the 17th century saw such a phenomenally quick development in handheld gunpowder weapons). Because they live underground without access to the right plant life they skip straight past matchlock weapons and go, by necessity, to the superior flintlock weapons.
- Finally your kobold hero could be this world's equivalent of Gustavus Adolphus and be the one to crack combined arms tactics. Because just having guns doesn't make an army invincible (after all, even with 19th century muskets you would be lucky to get four shots a minute) and you need somebody to protect the kobold musketeers while they reload. But if you combine kobold musketeers with hobgoblin mercenary pikemen and rhino-man heavy cavalry (and we mean heavy) then you get a battle-winning combination.
- And of course about two-hundred years later they could get the advantage all over again by being first with rifled barrels, then percussion caps and breech loaders, and finally repeater weapons. All of those seem appropriate for a race with ingenuity, fine dextrous hands and a tendancy to feel picked on... --Alex 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I am familiar with the basic history of gunpowder. Don't read too much into the sectionon on gunpowder yet. I confess that what I've written is a bit of an over simplification. I'll expand upon it more in the Retchan of Jiyank page when I get round to it. For now, I'll just say that Retchan was originally experimenting with the material components for the fireball spell to make it more effective and was surprised to find that his new formulation had explosive properties even without magic. Gunpowder weapons eventually developed from there. I was going to have its first use in traps, a typical kobold application.
I don't want Kalchichi employing large numbers of mercenaries because it runs against the rather uncooperative, paranoid bent that I wanted to give the empire. Kobolds live for a long time, and many of kalchichi's leaders from those days are still around, and have neither forgiven nor forgotten. Andy 13:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
One other thing - I've not actually said who the kobolds were fighting against yet. This is in part because I don't want step on anyone elses toes by dicating what their pet race has been doing. Its also because I haven't decided yet!
I had thought about the centaurs - I've said else where that kalchichi is a flat open plane, just the sort of environment that centaurs would enjoy. The idea of them invading Kalchichi like the mongle hoard is appealing. However, I also said that the kobolds spent years expanding peacefully. If the centaurs are nomadic, it seems likely that they would have encountered them earlier, especially as Xindung isn't as large as Coruvain. With that in mind, it would seem more likely that the invaders came from over seas, and I don't think centaurs would make good sailors.
I've not chosen a second minor race yet, so if nothing comes up I'll invent a victim for the kobolds wrath. Andy 13:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Large gunpowder mines as the first uses of blackpowder sounds better. And if you don't want mercenaries then how about the kobolds using their sorcerers to 'Charm Monster' and use big underground nasties as their pike equivalents, giving them time to reload. And if they're fighting a war against an enemy that is already stomping over their land maybe they should adopt a style like the original Spanish guerillas in the Peninsula War.
If you're not going to use them though then I think I'll borrow the hobgoblin pike blocks for Coruvain. They'll certainly fit in with the nest of highly competetive lands I have planned for the north coast of the continent.
As far as the centaurs go I had them running across the plains on the southern half of Coruvain and being very Native American in style rather than Mongul. I'm sure they can have travelled elsewhere (on rafts rather than ships presumably) but that was going to be their heartland.
Oh, and I did mention rhino men cavalry. That's not a mistake. I plan to introduce a species of giant horse (the titan destrier is the current name I'm considering) which will be big enough for large humanoids to ride, as well as having bony protrusions that act as natural weapons, making them dangerous with or without a rhino man soldier on the back...--Alex 14:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
There you go, you can add some independent kobold nations to that "nest of highly competetive lands" if you like. Andy 14:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You shouldn't have let me loose with that...--Alex 14:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
