The Kingdom of Thelidor conducts warfare in the classic medieval style, favoring open-field battles across rolling plains and gently forested terrain. Its armies reflect a high to late medieval technological level, equipped with chain mail, plate armor, swords, spears, and emblazoned livery.
Estimated maximum army size: Approximately 15,000 to 20,000 troops can be mustered in total during a major campaign.
The maximum includes levied troops from noble houses, mercenary contingents, and city militias.
Typical mercenary band size: Between 150 and 300 soldiers.
These bands are professional, cohesive units often led by experienced captains. Larger bands exist but are rarer and more expensive to maintain. Mercenary bands include a mix of infantry, some cavalry, and specialists like crossbowmen or pikemen. Their size allows flexibility for lords to hire multiple bands for campaigns without overcommitting.
Average noble house levy size: Roughly 300 to 800 troops.
This includes knights, men-at-arms, and levied infantry sworn to the house. Larger houses with more wealth and land might muster up to 1,000 or slightly more, but most are smaller. Noble levies are often supplemented by mercenaries for campaigns. The size depends on the house’s wealth, landholdings, and political influence.
While Thelidor’s noble houses maintain their own levies—trained men-at-arms and knights sworn to their lords—the kingdom has grown increasingly reliant on mercenary bands. These mercenaries are professional soldiers of fortune, often hardened veterans who bring specialized skills and discipline. Lords hire them to supplement their levies, preferring the flexibility and experience mercenaries provide over the sometimes unreliable feudal levies.
Despite this, Thelidor’s soldiers are known for their strength and resilience. The kingdom’s martial tradition is robust, and its warriors are well-trained and battle-hardened. However, internal strife among noble houses frequently weakens the kingdom’s ability to rally large, unified armies against external foes. This factionalism has historically made large-scale invasions rare.
One notable exception was under King Bertram, who successfully led a campaign to capture the strategic port city of Grey Harbor from the neighboring kingdom of Arinn. This campaign marked a rare moment of unity and military focus. Bertram’s forces nearly pushed further, threatening an invasion of Veloria, but political and logistical constraints prevented this escalation.
Thelidor’s navy is modest and primarily tasked with defending its port cities and coastal trade routes. While the kingdom controls several important ports, its naval power is limited compared to its neighbors. The neighboring sea powers—Veloria, a soft-power theocracy with a large imposing navy that doesn't stir unless it must, and Alendria, a war-ravaged and impoverished realm—have historically not posed direct threat, reducing the urgency for Thelidor to develop a strong fleet.
Thelidor’s warfare emphasizes heavy infantry and cavalry formations, with knights in plate armor leading charges supported by spearmen and archers. Battles are often decided by discipline, terrain advantage, and the ability to maintain formation under pressure.
Logistically, armies rely on local levies and mercenaries to provide supplies, though extended campaigns strain resources. The kingdom’s infrastructure supports rapid mustering of forces near key strongholds, but internal political rivalries can delay or complicate mobilization.
- Pay: 4–8 cp per day
- Includes: bread, small beer, simple lodging
- Frequency: daily or weekly
- Pay: 8–12 sp per week
- Includes: meals, equipment upkeep, shared lodging
- Frequency: weekly
- Pay: 4–7 gp per week
- Includes: arms, armor, horse upkeep, quality provisions
- Frequency: weekly or monthly
- Pay: 2–3 sp per day (8–16 sp per week)
- Includes: food, lodging, partial equipment maintenance
- Frequency: weekly
- Pay: 3–4 sp per day (15–20 sp per week)
- Includes: food, lodging, specialized gear upkeep
- Frequency: weekly
- Pay: 4–10 gp per week
- Includes: negotiation rights, better provisions, shares of plunder
- Frequency: weekly
Muster: 80 (smaller than average)
Leader: @Captain Gerhardt Brotwin
Reputation: Practical, humane, and unshowy, they fight to keep men fed and promises kept.
Banner: A golden bundle of grain against a green field.
Motto: "By Bread and Shield"
Details: Grainshield is a compact, disciplined mercenary company in Thelidor led by Captain Gerhardt Brotwin, a highly skilled Skybride veteran with naval and land combat experience. Leads roughly 40 pike‑armed infantry, 20 crossbowmen, a handful of sappers and engineers (6–8), a small scout/raiding detachment (6–8), and 6–8 cooks, quartermasters, and sergeants—enough to hold ground, guard convoys, and run the ovens that define the Grainshield’s rhythm.
Muster: 300 (larger than average)
Leader: @Hamil Langley
Reputation: Brutal, thrives on intimidation as much as slaughter
Banner: A pale, skeletal plow drawn across a field of broken weapons
Motto: "We Plow in Bone"
Details: A mercenary host feared across Skybride and Thelidor alike, a brutal counterweight to the more disciplined companies of the realm. Under Hamil Langley’s command, they march as a tide of iron and bone, their armor festooned with trophies torn from the fallen—shards of steel, teeth, and splintered shields. Larger than most mercenary bands, numbering nearly three hundred hardened fighters—pike lines, heavy infantry, mounted raiders, and a grim cadre of shield‑bearers who march at the captain’s side.
Muster: 150
Leader: @Kurik Shalt
Reputation: Professional, very fast and mobile, loyal to coin more than cause
Banner: rising sun, half-hidden behind a coastal horizon. Beneath the sun, a longsword and a bow
Motto: "We guard the dawn"
Details: Mid-sized mercenary company. Their ranks include disciplined infantry, a cadre of archers, and a small mounted wing for rapid response. Professional and loyal to their leader Kurik Shalt, their background lies in open-field skirmishes, escort contracts, and swift strikes.
Muster: 180
Leader: @Graham Fitz Earle
Reputation: brutal practicality—vigilantes with hearts of gold, feared by oppressors yet welcomed by villagers who see their maroon cloaks as a promise of protection
Banner: A maroon field divided diagonally by a black slash. At the center stands a silver bastard sword angled upward. Flanking the sword are two open hands—one scarred, one clean.
Motto: “Born in scorn, bound in honor.”
Details: The Bastard’s Legion is a disciplined but scarred company of mercenaries, forged from veterans who have seen noble cruelty firsthand. They fight with brutal practicality—ambushes, decisive strikes, and relentless marches—but their purpose is noble: to shield the weak and punish tyranny.
Muster: 110 (may operate in smaller cells)
Leader: @Ciaran Dunmar
Reputation: bandits and raiders notorious in Thelidor and its outskirts
Banner: A white field with gold reeds, with a black wolf in the center.
Motto: “From the fen, the wolf takes all”
Details: A rough but cohesive band of raiders, scouts, and skirmishers. They excel in ambushes, marshland warfare, and night raids, but falter in open-field battles