Going a Viking(or whose defending this berg anyways?)

[Chaotic_Blues]

Currently I'm running Northland saga, and they are approaching the end of NS2 Beyond the Wailing Mountains. Afterwards they'll have their own ship, and plenty of time to go looking for trouble. My question is a simple one, anyone know a quick way to determine who is defending a random village or town? What's a good way to generate the rewards they gain?

Defenders: I'd guess 10-5% of the population are soldiers, with roughly double that being militia. I'd say an average NPC level of 2.

Rewards: This I'd go with the settlements Purchase limit for goods and valuables. Some will be hidden by the locals no matter how well the Northlanders search, some will be destroyed in the inevitable fires that will be started.

This feels a little blah to me, so I'm hoping for some ideas I can use for when the inevitable cry of 'let's go a Viking!' rises from my players. After all I want to keep things interesting.

[Ring_of_Gyges]

I've heard closer to 1% of the population will be soldiers, almost everyone in a pre-industrial society is a farmer/herder/other food production person.

In the (admittedly modern) US less than one half of one percent of the population are in the military for example. Historical figures are fuzzy but in 1066 England had maybe 2 million people and fielded about 10,000 at the battle of Hastings (so, again, about half a percent).

A lot of the wealth is going to be in livestock. Carrying off sheep and pigs is good fun if you're a real starving Norwegian but a little disappointing if you are a 3rd level PC with thousands of gold pieces worth of gear.

I'd suggest preparing stats for commoners who run, commoners who grab spears and fight, a couple (like literally 2 or 3) warriors who are the town guard, and some more exciting named NPCs. Maybe one town has a 5th level cleric living in it, maybe another is home to an 8 year old with 8 sorcerer levels, another has a mayor who is a mid level ranger, etc... It will be these more level appropriate threats who will have the treasure, a +1 sword maybe or a wand of scorching ray, etc...

After a few conventional raids you can start mixing it up a bit. They show up in town to raid, but everyone is gone. All the goods are still there, the people are all just gone. Why? Another town they go to raid the Temple of Serenrae (or Northlands equivalent) and discover it is actually a temple of Rovagug (or local equivalent), etc...

[Chaotic_Blues]

Those are some good points. Still it sounds as though most villages aren't going to much of a threat to the average longship with even a small party of raiders for support. Then again that sounds like the point, a raid is a search for targets, not fights (or at least not fair ones).

[Andarion]

If we are going for historical similarity, the Vikings were known as "The Scourge of God" among other names. They were feared because they were "large" groups of militaristic men who swiftly raided coastal towns and were gone before the local lords could respond.

Most villages might have 2 to three people who had at one time been conscripts, but that would be about it. So combat wise, there is realistically not going to be a way to make it a challenge.

Treasure wise, Vikings focused on gold and slaves. They raided villages for slaves and monasteries for gold.

To satiate the cry for "Let's go Viking!" set up easy village raids for slaves (if your group is cool with that) and transportable commodities (eg. grains, salted meats, cloth) that they can sell at full price.

For pure gold, art, and what not, set up information in the towns they are raiding or selling stock in about temples and monasteries that have some treasure.

Combat wise, have and random table that includes x number of commoners who fight, y number of warriors, and z number of military personnel. This table increases in difficulty and you roll what each village has. As they get more successful, they attract more attention from local lords and the difficulty gets higher.

So something like:

1 3 0 0
2 3 1 0
3 2 2 0
4 3 3 0
5 2 2 1
6 3 2 1
7 2 2 2
8 3 2 2
9 2 3 3
10 3 3 4
11 3 5 4
12 5 7 6

First column is dice result, second is commoners, third is warriors, and fourth is PC classed trained military response.

Obviously this is an example table to show the idea. So at the beginning roll a D6 and that's what they face. As the get more and more infamous, roll a D6 + 2, then +3 and so on until you are getting results of 6-12, or higher if you want more of a challenge.

[Chaotic_Blues]

I like it. It shows how a country side could start mounting a defence, lords hiring local heroes, redistributing troops to help cover vulnerable coastal, and river side villages. In short the longer a group stays to raid, the longer the locals authorities would have to get organised.

I'm still concerned about giving out too much reward for too little risk. Still the spoils will be divvied between not only the players but also the crew, and other raiders they may convince to join them, so this may not be the deal breaker I'm afraid of. Still I like the idea of converting much of the settlements' wealth into livestock, grain, cloth, and other consumables.