Warfare (Shade)

Warfare on Shade is not high-tech, but becomes hi-mag as the Twine Wars continues.

Please note that Mutt has left a lot of things hazy, whether because those bits haven't been developed yet or because de wants to design things to balance threat levels nicely with other worlds.

Top powers at beginning of worldgate events: Soprone, unnamed fragmented empire, unnamed sea power, unnamed rocca land/continent. The first three of these are sea powers; the last is not, but consists of an entire continent overrun by highly-organised, hugely strong nomadic horse archers, and so deserves listing.

Metal

They have steel and alloys. There is no mithril. You can't put magic in metal (or any metal we're likely to deal with).

Firearms

Still very vague on this. Possibly hand-held gunpowder-launched projectiles. Probably not horse-drawn cannon.

Man-powered projectile

Huge rocca with huge longbows. Roccoa tradition of mounted archers on huge horses.

Horses

There are two things called horses. The smaller 'horses' are sized to be ridden by faleighs and smaller. They have some deerish characteristics, notably horns and headbutting tendencies. Working animals and war horses are not interchangeable: working ones have had their horns bred smaller. Of course, working horses are still of use for pulling stuff.

The larger 'horses' are horses as we'd know them, except bigger - to carry a rocca and accoutrements without difficulty. Tall faleighs can be better off with one of these.

Cavalry lancers ?? - still in use in bloodsports involving riding around and stabbing things.

War dogs

Not all continents use these for actual combat, but everyone uses them for support duties (finding things, carrying messages, etc).

Magic

The precise amount of punch a military mage corps can pack is still undecided, primarily because I want to get a good balance of power between worlds.

Battle mage units are always trained together. Strong camaraderie is especially important because of the somewhat chaotic nature of Muttiverse magic and the ways in which it's controlled -- you need to anticipate what your teammates are thinking.

Counter-magic is obviously important.

Chaotic methods and tactics are used to good effect by Iceheart's troops, who want the enemy never to know whether they're about to throw big rocks or set things on fire or alter the terrain, etc. They are highly organised; they just look unpredictable.

Shade's great strength, and where I think it outclasses both Eodea and Steamy, is in 'intelligent' magic (no, not MI yet) or magic used for calculations. This includes magical crypto, highly complex spells and spells that can run somewhat on their own and react to changed circumstances.

Comms magic is going to be key as soon as someone works out a reliable method that doesn't require line-of-sight.

Tech

I don't think trains or blimps are in widespread use, though hot air balloons are known. Shade is guaranteed to steal any and all technology it encounters.