I'm currently planning on having a war campaign (on Akiton of all places, against a villainous John Carter figure) for my group. What books, sources, or advice would everyone have for this?
Glenn Cook's Black Comoany books, and the Dread Empire books.
Edgar Rice Burroughs!
The 3.5 sourcebook Heroes of Battle.
Anything on the Apach wars, and perhaps Louis L'Amour, Lasr Stand at Papago Wells.
Steven Erikson's Malazan novels! Great for epic concepts and for ideas about small groups of people influencing large scale events in meaningful ways.
Xenophon's Anabasis could give you some neat ideas. Caesar's De Bello Gallico might also be good.
That's great! What PF books might help with mechanical things?
I second the Black Company books; they're a lot of fun.If you don't mind using manga/anime, the Berserk series is good, though pretty dark. I think there's some interesting material available in historical events like the campaign of Joan of Arc; the film The Messenger is a compelling treatment of her story which could make for some interesting applications in an RPG. And not all of it would be useful, but there are some great mercenary characters in the old Thieves' World collections.
I have heard good things about the Black Company books, there is also:
Orcs by Stan Nicholls
which focuses around a warband of Orcs. Combat is done in a visceral way there so it feels "right".
As with all great war sagas the heroes shouldn't be fighting in the war with the regulars, but instead achieving more important tasks. If the field army, armada, and air-force are the the fist of a nation it is the heroes, special forces, and other units that strike deep into enemy territory to achieve a more important goal that become the truly memorable ones that are legend--that and last stands, journeys that when done strike fear into your enemies such as traveling over the Alps at the beginning of winter in the Second Punic Wars, and Julius Caesar splitting his army and winning on both fronts.
The primary thing about War is that when the numbers become evident things start to get sublime. It is hard to imagine millions of people marching against one another--the number is easy, actually visualizing it and realizing how many people are going to be dead in the end is something in and of itself.
. . . the Berserk series is good, though pretty dark . . . .
We're both talking about WAR, right? War should NEVER be something that is not dark, edgy, and broody for when it is it idealizes it as something that is good. Why take something that is, by far, the most barbaric action that a people can do to another people and make it something cultured and good?
"It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it." -Robert E. Lee, general in the invasion of the southern confederacy.
Have you seen Berserk? When I talk about its being dark, I'm not just talking about the brutality of war. There's a lot of other stuff going on in that story just between the main characters and a larger plot line about demonic presence in the world of the story, and it gets disturbing at times in a way that goes beyond the disturbing character of war in general. The depiction of the beach at Normandy in Saving Private Ryan is disturbing in one way, Berserk is disturbing in another.
Steven Erikson's Malazan novels! Great for epic concepts and for ideas about small groups of people influencing large scale events in meaningful ways.
Agreed. The Malazan books are a great example for this, among other things.