RuneScape Forum Archive | 3rd Age War Makeup @ Mod Jack

Byzantinist

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Hguoh said :
The fact that the campaign owed it's successes and failures to the whims of a singular third party shows just how little concern Saradomin had for it and how vulnerable Drakan's forces were. It were not merely the vampire who were vulnerable (no blisterwood weapons) – the phalanx a lot more. Also, Drakan's forces were so vulnerable that they drove the entire army detachments back, only when Barrows got recalled by Sliske and died. Those soldiers were a long, hard road back to the River Salve, towards their initial borders.

First, the swamps had to be crossed, then there were a multitude of roads and gates to pass through, minor bridges and ditches to cross. Many barriers were crossed, even before the Barrows Brothers were enchanted, they cut deep into Morytania before meeting Sliske. Note that they were experienced and just returned from Southern Forinthry's front, which was already conquered by themselves and could now be exclusively diverted to Drakan's territory.

Then, from where would Saradomin have launched the attacks, from Misthalin? Logically, they would have to be supplied through (modern-day) Silverea, for the operation to be facilitated logistically from Southern Forinthry. Alternatively, they could have travelled more slowly towards Morytania by water, just to have those vampire menace them there on the banks of the River Salve. Suppose they would have to establish a bridgehead from somewhere. If it were not Paterdomus, where would it be then? Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

18-Mar-2018 08:51:27 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 08:56:28 by Byzantinist

Hguoh

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Byzantinist said :
It were not merely the vampire who were vulnerable (no blisterwood weapons) – the phalanx a lot more. Also, Drakan's forces were so vulnerable that they drove the entire army detachments back, only when Barrows got recalled by Sliske and died. Those soldiers were a long, hard road back to the River Salve, towards their initial borders.

And yet Drakan's forces were driven back as far as they were primarily by six people with magic armor and weapons. We see this happen again in the 4th age, when the Morytanian forces are pushed back to the Salve by the Seven Priestly Warriors. So yeah, I'd say that Drakan's forces are vulnerable when they've repeatedly failed and fallen to forces with but a few well-equipped members.

Or let me put it another way: Sliske was able to arm the brothers adequately enough that they became the driving force behind the successes in Morytania, so why didn't Saradomin?

Byzantinist said :
First, the swamps had to be crossed, then there were a multitude of roads and gates to pass through, minor bridges and ditches to cross. Many barriers were crossed, even before the Barrows Brothers were enchanted, they cut deep into Morytania before meeting Sliske. Note that they were experienced and just returned from Southern Forinthry's front, which was already conquered by themselves and could now be exclusively diverted to Drakan's territory.

Your timeline is simply wrong. In the Fall of the Six, it is said that Sliske came to the brothers and gave them his boons while they were still just promising warriors in their township. Their success on the Morytania front is entirely due to his interference. Heck, much of their success in their Forinthry efforts can also be attributed to Sliske's interference.

18-Mar-2018 11:29:13 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 11:31:00 by Hguoh

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hguoh said :
And yet Drakan's forces were driven back as far as they were primarily by six people with magic armor and weapons. We see this happen again in the 4th age, when the Morytanian forces are pushed back to the Salve by the Seven Priestly Warriors. So yeah, I'd say that Drakan's forces are vulnerable when they've repeatedly failed and fallen to forces with but a few well-equipped members.

Or let me put it another way: Sliske was able to arm the brothers adequately enough that they became the driving force behind the successes in Morytania, so why didn't Saradomin?

Yes, Saradomin did not give the brothers powerful abilities like Sliske did, though he did provide them with his own phalanx reserves. The Barrows were very powerful, I agree, though as can also be read in Fall of Six, at least six phalanx were at the brothers' command.

The latter actually killed many monsters as well, all covering the vast Morytanian area. Meanwhile, the brothers were always at the forefront killing the biggest and baddest "vulnerable" beasts that could be thrown at them, while the rest took care of the lesser ones.

The chief strength of the Morytania invasion did lie in its frontier troops. Though apart from the latter, the army consisted of a great number of operational, convoy and security troops, and worked very hard at destroying hostile elements and at purging the territory.

Interestingly, at the time of Drakan's counterack, as those battle-hardened phalanx' hierarchy got removed, no attempts were made to repel an attack or defend the frontier, yielding everything without a fight.

Once back on the western part of the Salve river, those troops displayed courage and excellent training in future battles, all in the spirit of the assault described above. If they had to defend Morytania until the last man, they showed total lack of preparedness. Had they not been put through defensive exercises on Drakan's terr Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

18-Mar-2018 19:18:32 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 19:56:45 by Byzantinist

Hguoh

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As a note: for as powerful as the Vampyres are, keep in mind that actual vampires weren't many (they still aren't in the modern day) and the process of converting humans to vampires was still in its infancy (less consistent with a higher chance of failure/fatality) and wouldn't reach its more reliable final form until long after the Vampyres conquered Hallowvale (since that's where they found and experimented with daeyalt).

Furthermore, pure born Vampyres generally don't seem to be the most combat inclined beings with Lorwerniel Drakan being the exception. So very few vampyres would actually have been part of Drakan's combat forces, and most that were would have been human converts (for which silver and numbers do the job well enough).

Byzantinist said :
Yes, Saradomin did not give the brothers powerful abilities like Sliske did, though he did provide them with his own phalanx reserves. The Barrows were very powerful, I agree, though as can also be read in Fall of Six, at least six phalanx were at the brothers' command.

Now follow that through. If Sliske hadn't armed the brothers, the campaign would have failed from the get go. Those six phalanx granted were clearly not up to the task they were given.

Byzantinist said :
The latter actually killed many monsters as well, all covering the vast Morytanian area. Meanwhile, the brothers were always at the forefront killing the biggest and baddest "vulnerable" beasts that could be thrown at them, while the rest took care of the lesser ones.

And if Saradomin had actually bothered to grant any sort of boon to literally anybody else in the force or grant such a boon to others after the brothers failed to try again, he could have easily taken Morytania as is evident by how far the brothers managed to get. The fact that you only need ~6 well armed combatants to decimate Drakan's forces' military strategy is a clear indication of their vuln

18-Mar-2018 19:34:16 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 19:46:23 by Hguoh

Hguoh

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Yet Saradomin concentrated all further effort pursuing Zamorak to the North. By all accounts, Drakan was put on the back burner and ignored outside of maintaining borders.

18-Mar-2018 19:44:36 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 19:44:52 by Hguoh

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hguoh said :
Your timeline is simply wrong. In the Fall of the Six, it is said that Sliske came to the brothers and gave them his boons while they were still just promising warriors in their township. Their success on the Morytania front is entirely due to his interference. Heck, much of their success in their Forinthry efforts can also be attributed to Sliske's interference.

Well, that was wrongly interpreted on my behalf. This makes me think Saradomin did not fear Drakan's vyres all that much. If he did, he would have done more to push them back, and when the invasion of Morytania took place, thrown more troops into battle, like those alongside the Barrows, to fight as partisans on vampire soil.

Alternatively, Saradomin was lacking time and resources, rather than interest. He would not use his potential, and recalled his detachments, which had been formed earlier, to be used in the event of war to help the triumvate corner Zamorak's hordes there, or to secure Misthalin.

Retreating Saradominist troops did not even prove to be enough at that - he required the help of the other gods to finally push Zamorak up north. I think Saradomin kinda felt paranoid - Zam and Drakan surounding him - felt they would all be going on the offensive.

Even if some of Drakan's air force got destroyed early on by the brothers, it still found sufficient resources to wreak great damage on the invading troops. Though instead of firmly holding back with their reduced numbers, the vyres kept endlessly charging until they would finally dominate over all Morytania. Saradomin understood this threat only too well, and considered that his only defence was to invade Drakan's territory.

Suppose that the Barrows brothers were never thrown in, that some strategoi with six other phalanx at their command were active. Would Drakan's vulnerable vampire have as much difficulty in beating back those forces all the way towards - or even beyond - the Salve river? Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

18-Mar-2018 19:53:51 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 20:24:26 by Byzantinist

Hguoh

Posts: 7,581 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Byzantinist said :
Suppose that the Barrows brothers were never thrown in, that some strategoi with six other phalanx at their command were active. Would Drakan's vulnerable vampire have as much difficulty in beating back those forces all the way towards - or even beyond - the Salve river

Considering the Seven Priestly Warriors managed to push back Morytania's invasion of Misthalin all the way to the Salve without any indication of an army aiding them (and in the absence of any godly or Mahjarrat support), Drakan would have likely had just as much difficulty beating any force similar to the Brothers' back to the Salve (assuming they started at the point the Brothers' invasion was turned back) if not more difficulty since the Saradominist forces wouldn't have just lost their leaders to Sliske's trick.

18-Mar-2018 22:37:11 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2018 22:39:44 by Hguoh

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hguoh said :
As a note: for as powerful as the Vampyres are, keep in mind that actual vampires weren't many (they still aren't in the modern day) and the process of converting humans to vampires was still in its infancy (less consistent with a higher chance of failure/fatality) and wouldn't reach its more reliable final form until long after the Vampyres conquered Hallowvale (since that's where they found and experimented with daeyalt).

Shortly after Darkmeyer got established, the Vyrewatch (converted humans) secured it. Understandably, the pace at which his vampire were produced was not formidable, though he succeeded when the gods' armies were still exhaustingly fighting among themselves.

Fortunately, Drakan had access to some simple things: number one: a huge pool of slave labor. He just had to say: “gather this, construct that, now give some blood”, and those humans would be like: “right away". Number two: enough time and land to collect adequate resources for centuries, in order to successfully breed and manage his races' numbers, slowly perfecting his defensive strategy, ruthlessly building up his military might.

Humans were quite useful and talented people, though Meyerditch was a place with a very low level of living standards for them. Therefore, many would only wish for being worthy enough to become part of the elite, wanting to be released from their bloody burden.

Now, imagine you being Drakan. Today, you're bored, and start to experiment a little, but your efforts still don’t result in any successful vyres. Soon you lock yourself away again, and tomorrow you invest your precious, yet endless time in an attempt to produce more. Years pass, trying, waiting - you gradually increase numbers.

As centuries pass between the fall of Hallowvale and Morytania invasion, Saradomin has fewer air units than before, (like the Psiloi, dispersed and sacrificed abroad), so Drakan's prison colony would outnumber the rest. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

19-Mar-2018 17:51:41 - Last edited on 19-Mar-2018 17:54:03 by Byzantinist

Hguoh

Posts: 7,581 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Again, the Seven Priestly warriors managed to push back the Morytanian forces all the way to and across the Salve with but 2 known exceptions (Count Draynor and Ruantun got stuck on the Misthalin side) and they did so without the aid of an army or god.

So even if we assume that Drakan spent so much time bolstering his numbers that even Saradomin's forces had difficulty dealing with them for the remainder of the 3rd age, how much more difficult should it have been to push back that force given over 1000 years into the 4th age to use the more refined processes of turning humans into vampyres?

Yet the Seven Priestly Warriors did just that, suffering no loss to their number until they deliberately stopped at the Salve to perform their blood magic ritual and were more focused on performing said ritual, defending themselves only to complete it.

OSRS even has a book (Serafina) detailing the methods the Vampyres maintain governmental control, and it's not by force:

Of particular interest to me was the story of the vampyres and just how they'd managed to maintain control of the region for so long. Although I was at first puzzled by their rule, the truth behind it soon revealed itself to me in the form of a tale, the tale of Serafina.

...

When I heard about the Theatre, I could not help but be impressed by the ingenuity of the vampyres, for it is the Theatre that holds the secret to their rule, hope. The way it works is very simple, the vampyres will allow anyone living in Morytania to free both themselves and their families of all future blood tithes, all they must do in return is survive the challenges of the Theatre. Through this, hope is provided to all those living in Morytania, hope that they will one day be free of the vampyres.

...

For as long as people believe that Serafina freed herself, they will hope that they can do the same. And for as long as that hope survives, the vampyres will continue to rule Morytania.

19-Mar-2018 18:24:47 - Last edited on 19-Mar-2018 18:31:34 by Hguoh

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hguoh said :
Furthermore, pure born Vampires generally don't seem to be the most combat inclined beings with Lorwerniel Drakan being the exception. So very few vampyres would actually have been part of Drakan's combat forces, and most that were would have been human converts (for which silver and numbers do the job well enough).

How could it have happened that Lord Drakan’s siblings sat back, without any plans, while the enemy waged war in their front yard? They proved to be quite effective air support troops in Zamorak’s war machine, and were vital in his battles.

Without the original vampyre's participation after Hallowvale’s fall, it wouldn’t make sense that they would make a big difference for Zamorak’s legions, to have been able to win against his enemies. What caused their loss? How did Drakan use up their potential?

Even the few humans converted to Vyrewatch had long range aviation capabilities, though Saradomin did not have any airborne troops. The former could easily cross obstacles, while the latter had to apply a slow, static “battering-ram” strategy, failing without the Bros' help.

The army led by the Barrows brothers concentrated their attention on destroying all the opponent's pieces en masse, beginning with the pawns, leaving the enemy valuable time to regroup and plan great counterattacks, without speedily, surprisingly overrunning reserves.

As Drakan could understandably not relate to the military situation abroad, and completely independent of Zamorak, he thus developed his own tactical ideas. He exposed the poverty of the enemy's strategy - twice - by delivering a blow in depth, thereby rendering his opponent's pawns useless by striking condensed forces at the kingpin.

Lastly, there were reports of “great monstrosities” and “great beasts” against whom the Saradominists fought in the crumbling tome, thus the phalanx could less easily penetrate Morytania. Yet another piece of Saradominist propaganda? Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

19-Mar-2018 19:06:56 - Last edited on 19-Mar-2018 19:19:41 by Byzantinist

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