Rahadoum’s Navy?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


Is Rahadoum a major naval power?

With access to the exit of the Inner Sea, a major chunk of Garundi coastline, and the threats of both the Chelish and Shackles fleets, I have to imagine this is the case, but I don’t truthfully know anything about Rahadoum’s military power.


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So there are a few things to consider here;

1. Rahadoum is mentioned as having its capital be a bustling port, and having a very large merchant class. This would imply a large merchant fleet (relative to the nations size). The world guide does mention them having a navy, which is mostly based on the island of Nuat, but makes no mention of its size.

2. I don't know a huge amoumt, but my impression was that Rahadoum is sort of a minor nation, and size/importance of a nation plays a role in how big their merchant fleet, and their navy can be.

3. In Age of Sail settings, dedicated warships are insanely expensive. Building a large warship can be on the order of economic magnitude of a major public work, and is usually the most expensive single project a nation can work on. You can mitigate this somewhat by converting merchant ships if you have a decent merchant fleet however. (A good example of how expensive a warship could be, in the 17th century Sweden built a warship called the Vasa, which sunk only 120 metres away from the dock it launched from. This ship costed an insane 5% of the nations GDP, and losing it was a massive financial disaster)

4. In a fantasy setting, magic would play a massive role in the effectiveness of a navy. Rahadoum has a stronger focus on arcane magic, with divine magic being basically illegal, and probably has very poor relations with the churches that might play an important role to the navies of other nations. The world guide does mention that they are a particularly innovating/technological nation, which means they might have more advanced ships. I imagine Rahadoum would suffer pretty strongly after battles due to the reduced access to healing magic that other navies would rely on.

Based on those things, I imagine they would have a pretty good navy, but not in the same order of magnitude as major powers like Cheliax. It would probably be stronger than other nations of the same size/prominence as Rahadoum that have less of a focus on trade. It probably has a much higher casualty rate than other navies due to having very limited healing magic, but maybe more advanced ships/more experimental designs. It is notable that they are described as doing an excellent job of repelling the Free Captains of the Shackles, so they are definitely superior to the Shackles in that regard (though pirates tend to operate independently, so who knows what would happen if someone united all of the Free Captains into one big fleet).

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