The novels.

[Aguila Saber]

The problem is the surprise itself. Lencia is a sea-faring nations with a very large amount of ships of various sizes. The chance of making a surprise attack with 20 titanic vessels should be very, very slim.

As a comparison. Look at the behaviour of the people of Helmstorm when they prepared for the attack. The same behavior could be expected in the cities of Vadera and Westhaven. I.e. when the crusade is called off I'd expect them to fall back on their normal routines. They have after all lived with the threat of invasion for centruries and has repelled one such assault less than 2 decades ago.

Ships would be useless in the south. What is called to the south is the regular army. For the ships and marines I'd expect business to return to normal, which means patrolling the tentarias, spying on drakkarim activitities and more.

Vadera can be approached directly from the sea, so I guess feasible to make a surprise attack there. Westhaven is at the end of an inlet. You would expect lookouts along the inlet to survey the traffic. The chance of sailing ships along an inlet is also much greater.

That the Drakkarim succeeded with the invasion with 40.000 Darkkarim shipped over is not all that surprising. Lencia has a very low conscription level, thus the armed troops of Lencia has little chance if the Drakkarim successfully lands with an army of that size on their lands.

What is more noteworthy is that 40.000 is a little more than 2/3 of the population in Nyras. Nyras has about 55.000 population in MS 5050 with the recent bloody wars this numer is unlikely to have increased, but I guess there could have been migrations within the Drakkarim lands.

The question which begs to be asked is if the population numbers is males only, since if it is not then the army would need to include a considerable amount of women (and children).

[fordy]

Population-wise, let's remember the numbers you are working with are 100 years out of date. Let's also remember that in the ten years previous to the novel the Drakkarim of Nyvos, Nyras and Zaldir all became united under a single flag. When Nyvos broke away once more it was with Giaks and Nadziranim, not Drakkarim warriors.

[Aguila Saber]

No, the numbers are from the Magnamund Compaion and thus 50 years old, since those numbers are from MS 5050.

Adding together Nyras, Nyvoz, and Zaldir in MS 5050 before the war we will arrive at 55,000 + 75,000 + 26,000 = 156,000. 40,000 is still a very high fraction and the home nation also has a rebel leader waiting to attack him.

The rebel leader in the book controlled most of Nyvoz and the Nadziranim and Giaks there, then again I think the War Marshall will find Nyras invaded from Nyvoz in Book 2.

[Black Cat]

Speaking of the second novel of the trilogy, did they told you when it would be published? I hope we won't have to wait another year! ;D

[fordy]

Since I've not finished the first draft yet, it's unlikely it'll be before the latter half of 2009.

[koreth]

Fordy,

Thanks for responding to our questions. Although I'm not sure I agree fully with how the Drakkarim did it, having them successfully invade Lencia makes for good reading. Having large characters die early is unexpected but is also real.

You will always find TOS to have the most vehement supporters (and also critics) of Magnamund based items. Thanks for responding.

Regards,
Koreth

[Black Cat]

Dec 29, 2008 7:05:57 GMT -5 fordy said:

Since I've not finished the first draft yet, it's unlikely it'll be before the latter half of 2009.

Awww... And I thought that you had been working on the book since Fall 2007, when Mongoose first announced a release date for TDoL (which was then pushed back to Fall 2008). Oh well, I'll be patient...

[zorkaan]

Speaking about the "surprise" of the Drakkarim for Lencia, Fordy, I don't understand how did Ranghor manage to hide his new shipyards (those producing the destroyers) in Zeegazad. This town seems to be the second in size of Nyras, and I can't imagine that Lencian spies or navy have not discovered it. I remember that Lencia owns several island in Magnamund western coast (for example Azgad Island in LW17), and thus a lot of lencian boats should travel in front of Zeegazad. Are the shipyards hidden? You will tell me that the Drakkarim may not have discovered "Newport" where the Lencia produced new ships for the Doun River (it's strange that the book do not speak about this mysterious place anymore...). Thank you for speaking about your work with us!!!

[Maerin]

Well, I am only going to address this subject in general terms, but I think we have some pretty modern conceits when it comes to the effectiveness of even direct visual or other forms of human intelligence. Prior to, and even for long stretches during, the 20th century, human intelligence has shown itself to not be nearly as effective as is sometimes made out.

Between having assets in the right place at the right time, having those assets being able to communicate what they discovered back to Lencia (effective communication always represents a major factor), and having those in Lencia be able to accurately interpret and understand what is going on (in one of life's little ironies, this is often the most significant detrimental factor)....those are a lot of maybe's. There can be little question that our own history has demonstrated time and time again that such maybe's are nothing if not effective at disconnecting an overall intelligence process from reality and keeping it disconnected.

That being the case, it is not at all improbable that such efforts could elude any efforts of Lencian espionage that may or may not be present.

[Doomy]

Or it might be a plot hole.

[Maerin]

Yeah, it could. But in my experience, identification of mere plot holes make for poor online discussions that inevitably just degenerate into ceaseless and monotonous diatribles against all those clueless and clearly exploitative authors and publishers out there. Inevitably even that fails and one is left with one-line/one-sentence posted replies on the topic. I got tired of reading those long ago (I never see any creativity or originality displayed in them anymore).

Now, discussing in what ways a given topic might not be a plot hole, now that is a class of online discussion that never actually gets old... Sure, such might not have been the authors intent. But honestly, who really cares. Most of the authors of my acquaintance will get behind reader interpretations of their work over whatever their original intent might have been, simply because it shows that the reader is engaged in the author's work. I even know a few of those authors that took reader discussions about those so-called "holes" and wove them into a future story that finally filled the "hole". Those authors don't do that because they are lazy; they do it because it is virtually the only way an author can reward a creative reader for appreciating their work enough to put some honest thought into it.

[fordy]

Quote from page 121: A massive shipbuilding yard was contructed beneath Zeegazad.

I didn't particularly feel the need to expand on this point, though I guess I could have filled another page on the lengths the Drakkarim went to keep their plans for invasion secret. But then that would have been a pointless and unnecessary use of space best substituted with battle and mayhem!

If you want to keep looking for plotholes feel free, but as mentioned, that's probably going to get pretty old, pretty quick. As long as it doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the book, does it really matter?

[Doomy]

Jan 5, 2009 11:05:59 GMT -5 Maerin said:

Yeah, it could. But in my experience, identification of mere plot holes make for poor online discussions that inevitably just degenerate into ceaseless and monotonous diatribles against all those clueless and clearly exploitative authors and publishers out there. Inevitably even that fails and one is left with one-line/one-sentence posted replies on the topic. I got tired of reading those long ago (I never see any creativity or originality displayed in them anymore).

Now, discussing in what ways a given topic might not be a plot hole, now that is a class of online discussion that never actually gets old... Sure, such might not have been the authors intent. But honestly, who really cares. Most of the authors of my acquaintance will get behind reader interpretations of their work over whatever their original intent might have been, simply because it shows that the reader is engaged in the author's work. I even know a few of those authors that took reader discussions about those so-called "holes" and wove them into a future story that finally filled the "hole". Those authors don't do that because they are lazy; they do it because it is virtually the only way an author can reward a creative reader for appreciating their work enough to put some honest thought into it.

Unfortunately, I am unable to indulge in such creative flights of fancy, not having read the book and indeed not being able to for some time, for fear of blowing money on what would otherwise be a no-brainer instant purchase, thanks to Mongoose's slightly confused carrot-dangling for non-Megadeal customers:
"Buy all the gamebooks then get the novels free! No, you can't subscribe to the series in advance! Pay us £300 up front or buy them individually! We'll send you the novels after you buy the others!"

However I admire your positive outlook.

[Maerin]

Maerin laughs. You better. GM's get the rap on occasion too, and fuzzy positive outlooks do a lot for keeping a GM in his seat.

That said, I do not know much about the specifics here either. Though the book is presently sitting on my shelf, I have yet to find the time to read it.

Maerin wanders off to try and figure out how to re-unite a group of player characters who unpredictably split up just before the holiday break...

[zorkaan]

Jan 5, 2009 11:46:10 GMT -5 fordy said:

Quote from page 121: A massive shipbuilding yard was contructed beneath Zeegazad.

I didn't particularly feel the need to expand on this point, though I guess I could have filled another page on the lengths the Drakkarim went to keep their plans for invasion secret. But then that would have been a pointless and unnecessary use of space best substituted with battle and mayhem!

If you want to keep looking for plotholes feel free, but as mentioned, that's probably going to get pretty old, pretty quick. As long as it doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the book, does it really matter?

Thank you Fordy, I did not notice this detail. So there are secret shipyards beneath Zeegazad, very exciting!

I apologize if I have annoyed some of you with my questions, my aim was certainly not to find some plotholes in the great story written by Fordy (I have already posted earlier how much I found it fantastic). I am just so impatient to discover all the secret of Magnamund, and to imagine a secret underground facility under a classical drakkar city is exciting, for example for RPG campains.

Personally, I would not have been annoyed if you had written pages on the lengths the Drakkarim went to keep their plans for invasion secret... Because you made us interested in the new Drakkarim of Rhanghor. This humans (or human-like, we still don't know) were the pawns of the Darklords, who nearly managed to change them into Darkspawn, erasing their minds and their opinions, suppressing their ingenuity and their creativity. Free from the Darklords, Ranghor has driven them into intelligent beings, able to think as all other humans. And their ideas must be very different from those of the "normal" humans. So I think I will never be bored by descriptions of the Drakkar's mind or reflections. Your work is excellent.