I love the constant visiting of the topical locations, making the whole channel feel like a documentary. Like there should be a bbc logo somewhere in the corner
Ahaha, brilliant. Unfortunately, don't get tooo used to it. I'm not planning any trips in the near future! Well, many that are too far from home, anyway
He is a TV entertainer in the UK and so is required to pay his BBC tax, he really should be able to put a BBC logo on his channel and take all channel expenses off of his taxes. he should do a poll of UK citizens going village to village and see how many of UK citizens like this idea of having a RUclips or video stream channel and so being able to count all channel expenses off one's tax, their are a few UK content creators he could join with to help make this happen.
Like with most of the logistics problems with medieval fantasy tropes, the answer to "how to defend an island" can be found in ancient Greek mythology. Specifically, the Odyssey. What do Odysseus and his crew find on every island Poseidon throws them on? A monster or a population of monsters or a single witch. Every time. Don't sail to that island. The cyclopses will get you. Don't sail to that island. The Amazons will get you. Don't sail to that island. The witch will turn you into a pig. Don't sail near that island. Sirens. Don't sail near that island. Either the tentacle monster will get you, or the maw at the bottom of the whirlpool will. Don't sail there. The witch will seduce you so she can use your seed to do some... actually, no. That one doesn't seem so bad. If you want to defend an island, you can either build a small army, rent out space to a monster, or errect one wizard tower.
@Purriah If it's just a ruse, then any enterprising group of cut throats will eventually test the rumors, find out, and try to move in and make the rumors "true." Best case scenario, you become roommates with the "ghost" pirate crew from the early seasons of Venture Brothers. Worst case scenario, you've laid the groundwork for every npc pirate in the setting to operate in complete secrecy from their new hideout once they take you out.
You just missed the best defense… write a story that details the horrible unsurvivable monsters that live on literally every island around you. Now no one will try
@@CitanulsPumpkinnot necessarily especially in a high magic world where some people are equipped to deal with basically anything. To the king or adventurers it doesn’t matter if it’s a cyclops or a bandit crew that keeps killing everyone on that island send the court wizard or an adventuring party.
@l3gend576 Okay, sure. The nearest king can just send his mage. Congrats. You've set up your campaign setting so that there's nothing for the PCs to do. Again, if you just build all the island's defenses on a lie someone will come by to use that lie against you. If you "just send a wizard to deal with it" your wizard will get ganked by the pirate captain's shadow monk lieutenant.
With magic, the concept of an island could easily grow to encompass any tract of land that's isolated by difficult-to-navigate terrain. After all, as pointed out, you can survive indefinitely almost anywhere without any external provisions. Your island could be atop a plateau, slipped into a valley too deep to ever build a road to, dug deep underground, or placed on the back of some giant megafauna. Especially if your world has something like a dirigible available to them, like Eberron.
There's also the more traditional "isolated castle surrounded by a dense, magically-defended forest full of hostile creatures" fairytale trope. Usually the lair of some cursed noble/monarch.
I like the idea of creating a ring of underwater spears with Stone Shape to impale the hulls of incoming ships with a gap only on the land ward side. You're not discouraging trade and any approaching invaders would have to make them selves visible to coastal cities.
In dnd, since waterwalk is a spell, you don't even need to get close to land to invade with infantry. Have a mage cast waterwalk on some shock troops, perhaps even cavalry(this will be very hard to manage, granted) and send them in to secure a landing position for the rest of an invasion force.
i think the concept is most interesting at lower levels, because in DnD and pathfinder a single druid, nature cleric, or particularly stubborn ranger can colonize and defend their own island with almost scary effectiveness, in pathfinder 1e a level 15 druid with the right build can colonize an island and defend it without really breaking a sweat given a day or two of preparation
I would love to see you do a video on food culture in D&D worlds. Not only how the cultures and anatomy of each race affects it, but also the effects of magic. How might heroes’ feast and create food and water make a difference? Also, purify food and drink can allow food to become a lot more safe. Normally poisonous foods could become edible. People might eat chicken tartare, as the raw chicken would be magically cleansed of salmonella, campylobacter and other pathogens. The wealthy might pay a lot for otherwise dangerous food to show status, even if it’s not actually that good served the way it is. Also, it is a first level ritual spell, meaning that if you have access to the resources to learn it, anyone can learn to cast it an unlimited amount of times without taking class levels. People might set up monopolies of safe to eat, usually toxic foods. And also, once disease and poisons have been removed, the cultural definition of food probably becomes a lot more loose.
These are brilliant points. My prestidigitation and vegetarianism videos discuss food somewhat, but this is certainly a very good insight that I hadn't considered. I'll let the idea percolate and see if a video comes out of it
@@Grungeon_Master mix in food allergies, celiac disease, lactose intolerance, etc. if you want a true challenge (or make a separate niche video, if that works better).
@@Hunterdog Can the spell be specified to exactly vanish a specific protein and nothing else? Like: take away the milk protein from milk, or e.g. gluten from a cereal product? It would probably be more efficient, though, to swap cow's milk for goat or sheep milk, and wheat for rice or potato.
As for Purify Food and Drink what about salt water? Salt is essential for food prep and bodily function. But then TOO much salt will kill you. You can't drink seawater because there is so much salt in that it would draw out what water you have in your body by osmosis. So would Purify Food and Drink leave fresh water? It is a higher level but what about Fabricate? Could you take all salt from an amount of sea water and make one large salt cube thus making fresh water or at least brackish water?
15:26 and this is why you have mages who learn spells like control flame on your ships and other useful ones for putting out fires or countering spells before they can reach your vessel. If magic exists there is no reason people would use magic to counter it when people start using it in warfare
the teleportation circle spell has a limitation of only working if there is space around the destination for the traveler to move into. so a tp circle in a defended location would be contained in a smaller fortified building with space only available if the door to it is open. meaning only a few people can go through before there is no more space and they start dying as they are shunted by the teleportation into the walls. some circles may even create something that can be moved to block the space directly over the circle itself. given there is long range communication spells its reasonable to keep these circles locked down any time they are not being used.
It would be a kill box. Small point of entry, set up so that defenders have plenty of time to identify friend from foe, plenty of cover for defenders to attack from multiple sides. Seriously take a look at traditional castle entrances for more ideas. Or just go the Stargate route and put a door over it when you don't want it used.
Having something blocking the circle to stop people coming in might be up for interpretation because of this one line. "in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied" How far is the "nearest unoccupied space"? Does it mean the 12 spaces directly touching or adjacent to the 10 foot circle or does it extend to beyond those unoccupied spaces? Even with that pedantic argument One spell would completely negate all the kill box prep someone does to guard against unwanted teleporting in. *Transport via Plants* 6th level Druid spell. All a druid has to use the spell is have seen one Large or Larger plant on that island (or for that matter rival warring nation) just once and instant transport. The connection is only open for 1 round but you could move a very large amount of troop through the connection in that amount of time if they are staged correctly.
A smart Island pop. would use Magic to construct a Redoubt in Centre of island where maybe they can view 360 Degrees. if attacked all the peoples retreat to the Redoubt. It's much harder to attack uphill than to defend downhill.
So, I've recently been running a PF2e game in a homebrewed post WWI setting, set on a large island that is basically an expy of Hawaii. My premise is that they weren't directly colonized this time around due to their magical capacity, but still found the event to close for comfort. The points you bring up further solidify this idea, as the development of modern naval vessels (steel hulls, coal-fired engines, and super firing artillery cannons) would render most traditional defenses obsolete, aside from magical wards.
When you mentioned seafolk destroying a ship from below. . . All I could imagine is a special forces team that consists of artificers and a caster with Water Breathing deploying a counter attack by diving from a mage made well from within the island, sneaking under the ship with pass without trace, and disassembling it That's a relatively very small group of operators that can turn the tide of battle (pun intended)
During WWII Allies were able to track & monitor Japanese Naval & air Movement just by stationing individuals & small teams on strategic Isles. they did not need to man every isle & they did not really require huge manpower to do so. You couldn't have a powerful Long-Range Mage in every position but you could have perhaps several Lesser Short-Range Mages on station to give Warning via Magical means and to form a Magical "Net" connecting to the Mage in sight of Enemy lending him power or the lesser Mages scattered in hidden locations could conversely lend Magical power to a more powerful Mage.
Given how likely a powerful mage is to be power hungry, I almost expect those mages to become sources of power for their own governments, so you really don’t want to “send out your mages” to do guard duty. Rather, a smart king bribes and honors his mages to basically form a parliament for his country. This is significant in unexpected ways when the king uses the same ceremony as British Parliament uses, where most people forget that the oath of office is “I ___[name]___ swear to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to King Charles III his heirs and successors according to law.” By making that gesture so ingrained that average Britons don’t think much of it, and could be upset at a government leader who doesn’t swear the oath of office, you get a fantasy situation of any major magician in a country either wants to run to be a member of Parliament, or if a magician starts making moves to set up his own government away from the king, then that is suddenly seen as treason, and a war breaks out to get rid of the rebel magicians. In light of such a Parliament situation for those sources of real power (every magician with access to 3rd level spells), we are hit with a likely situation in our fictional world that sending out a powerful magician to fight on an island is like sending out House of Lords member David Cameron to fight on the beaches of Gibraltar with some light infantry to push back an invasion by Morocco. If it sounds ridiculous to do that with David Cameron in our modern day, then it will sound ridiculous to do it with well-known powerful magicians in the fantasy setting. Now, of course, if this is a battle with a lot of public opinion riding on the victory, then suddenly things change and the magical parliamentarians will probably each try fighting separately with a division of nonmagical infantry underneath them, where those nonmagical people are assigned to have their main role be to remember everything their commander did and write songs about him, and their secondary job is to tell tales about his exploits in battle when they return home. The tertiary role of those infantry under that politician is to do their “actual” jobs as soldiers.
Love the videos. Rooting the fantasy in reality and exploring fantasy worlds after looking at real world historical events, gives these videos a documentary feel. It’s like if David Attenborough were a D&D aficionado.
I play an artificer wizard gestalt and said a way to stop the time dilation of the feywild, by making a time stable object and placing it in two dimensions at once, or putting the material plane next to a black hole to slow the one we worry about to a crawl. Anyways the dm fears I might destroy the universe or multiverse. Also I find this video interesting.
In the world I'm building, a cabal of mostly elven wizards terraform a planet in the (untiled then unpopulated) prime material plane. Part of that was raising a mass of stone to form an archipelago consisting of a large Cresent enveloping a smaller central island and several fortress islands on the outer arc. This archipelago is their home territory. This video is going to be a great help in designing their defenses; thank you for making it. 🙂
24:41 it wouldn't have to be *every single* coastal settlement though unless we're talking about an island in a river here. Just deepwater ports. If you've already forced your opponent into small boats in order to land, then trebuchet emplacements and alchemical mines will make landing all but impossible. Rune traps are also very effective, especially against opponents who don't employ wizards (wizard colleges are hecking expensive). And that's IF they can land at all, which is not always feasible. There are actually relatively few angles of attack for an ocean-going vessel on most islands, because reefs and cliffs or even silted up river deltas can prevent their approach. Or the water around your island could just be *boiling* like for Hawaii. You can also protect your ports Carthaginian style, by building walls which need to be lifted in order for boats to get out. A drawbridge across a harbor is a very potent defense on an island as it limits the size of enemy ships that can approach land. Additionally, islands often have satellite rock formations or sandbars either just peaking out of the ocean or just beneath it's surface. These can function as building platforms for lighthouses, which can be early detection systems. You needn't staff them with mages, as the lights themselves can be signal devices. Even with very low tech, you can use screens to create flash patterns which are highly visible from shore. But the enemy would never see it, as the side of the fire they can see is not the one being covered. If you have lenses this is even more effective, because changing the angle of the lens also alters the light as seen from shore. Again, this is a silent signal the enemy is unlikely to detect. Only a trained artificer *might* be able to tell you were signalling. If you have lenses your lighthouse could even be a weapon, and again only a highly trained artificer would even notice this attack until it's too late. You could deliberately let ships into your harbor, and drop anchor in order to cast teleportation circles. At that point you refocus your lens, while they're distracted with their summoning. By the time their first wave of summons shows up, their sails are on fire.
Sure fire mages would be dangerous to ships but personally I think the caster that can cast Control Weather would be the most dangerous for the invading maritime assault. If you use the longest time stated in the spell a mage could cause the calm day to shift to stormy (one step above gale force) in must 160 minutes. That mage could hold the weather at that stage for 8 hours. It has a extremely massive area of effect of 5 miles. Yeah that 5 mile area would be centered on the one casting the spell and it would wreak havoc on any structure on the island but if they are crazy enough to hit the nuke button just to stop an invasion I don't know if that island would be worth the trouble of taking.
Once we have casters getting beyond 6th level spells, we are looking at pretenders for the throne of king of the entire world. A caster who can cast an eighth level spell is likely presumably (even if wrongly) by neighboring countries to be a person with the potential to cast Teleport (a 7th level spell with unlimited range), making that person be feared by nations to the same extent as an ICBM. Thus, showing the existence of a person on your island with the ability to cast an 8th level spell can directly make your island “worth invading” just for the sake of the comfort of foreign rulers hating the existence of a mage who can teleport into their palace and drop a firestorm (another 7th level spell) on them while they are sleeping, regardless of how good the intentions of that mage are, the fear that other rulers have is greater.
I support and appreciate your not selling out to a bunch of sponsors. First I hear about raids and thankfully no raid promo and then about fishing without mentioning a VPN
teleportation circles also mean that islands that joint together can support large armies, just as the ship arrived with the teleportation circle, the defending troops can arrive from a dedicated fortress island that has links to all the islands. all the islands will have a way that is optimal to attack it from meaning for the defending troops it becomes the same predictable battle. if a island blocks visibility from a angle then it's more likely the enemy will come from that direction, predictable. they can pick the beach closest to land on or to climb the cliffs closest from that approach, that becomes path A or Path B, predictable. put a ship to watch the cliffs hard to see climbers from the island easy to see from a "fishing" ship, set up ambush points for the predictable paths they will take. islands are where multiple paths come together in the center. you are only going to a point on a island, unlike on a land you may be just passing threw the countryside to get to a distant land, if your going to a distant land and stopping in port on the island then you have no business in the countryside unless you are a spy.
Send a small infiltration unit to an island. Infiltration unit sets up a teleportation circle in a relatively remote location. The infiltration unit then uses the sending spell to inform the invading army's head mage the formula for that teleportation circle. Head mage then proceeds to teleport an army to the island. Suddenly an army has appeared without ever making landfall save for a little dingy that showed up a day prior.
I think you’d need to perform the spell for a year before being able to use that location for teleportation- since the spell specifies it needs a “permanent teleport circle”. But the idea of sending an infiltrator to create one of those in the enemy capital ahead of an invasion is awesome
@iamfilam2513 Within the parameters listed by the spell, and only those, yes. But if one were to consider a "permanent teleportation circle" to mean one that doesn't fade after a few seconds, then it might be possible to manually carve out a teleportation circle into a stone or wood floor that is then powered by magical energy, this may even be how one would get a teleportation circle to work on a boat. It technically might even be possible for one to teleport to a temporary teleportation circle if someone knew or otherwised guessed the sigi sequence, they just don't last long enough for someone to commit the sequence to memory. It might be possible that two mages with a telepathic link are able to share their sigil sequences instantly and could potentially swap places if they each cast the spell at the same time. If one were to assume that the way the spell was written was only covering the potential most common use cases, then a small team of master craftsmen with some magic power sources and a sending stone could potentially take down an island fortification with their instant army. If the way the spell is written is the only way it can work, then it will be a year-long operation where they hope they aren't discovered.
@@dicyanoacetylene6220 That’s all great. Far be it from me to limit your brainstorming. I was just pointing out that the spell you were referencing using makes mention of needing a permanent teleportation circle, and that it takes one year to create a permanent teleportation circle. But homebrew it up!
@@iamfilam2513 I think this plan can work with a temporary one. Problem is that it's a 5th level spell, so a domain of decently powerful wizards and those, depending on settings, can be hard to find, considering that vast majority of npcs are intended to be below level 1
@@Alex-cq1zr I mean, with homebrew, anything can work. All I was pointing out was the spell states you have to pick a permanent teleportation circle to teleport to. Non-permanent circles, based on the spell, disappear after 6 seconds. Change it however you want.
This reminds me of watching Brian Cox taking tenuous premise to go and film in some lovely scenic places! Excellent work. Shame the BBC didn't pay for it though.
In my current campaign, the planet has hundreds of smaller islands that can support a larger village but are also able to move using magic, making them effectively comparable to aircraft carriers when it comes to power projection.
So happy at the mention of The Count of Monte Cristo. I love that story and the movie from the late 90s or 2000s is still on my top 5 list of favorite movies.
19:10 Don't forget the enemy could just use teleportation magic to get onto the island bypassing defenses to attack or using their own illusion magic to sneak up on the defenders. As for assassinating the mages defending the place they could use the invisibility spell on a competent assassin whose able to make the swim from the blockade to the island or even just cast water walking or water breathing on them at the same time and letting them head in assuming there aren't a bunch of aquatic monsters around to make such an attempt fool hardy
There always Counter-Magics though. Detect-Spell "Sentinels/Sentries" tethered to seafloor ...Mana-Bomb Mines to explode if Magic detected offshore. Buildings can be warded with Magical Barrier. Even Invisibility Spell can be warded against/countered.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy Yes and the ships can come prepared to handle that if they know it's there via using divination magic. It's counter spells all the way down
In contrast, about magical defence of islands in history: the Lebor Gabala shows how the mage-kings-gods of Ireland summoned a magical storm to keep the Milesians from invading them. Interestingly, the same story shows us magical countermeasures: the bard Amergin, of the Milesians, sings a plea to the land of Ireland and the storm wanes, allowing the Celts to invade.
Although, considering there is a DM they could theoretically have it be that Raiders are none-existent so the only threat is a foreign country. Additionally, another defense is Illusion Magic that could make the Island look like a barren wasteland to outsiders.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy But then there is concern that a potential enemy would crash into an invisible island causing problems. But if it simply looks like a place you don't want to be/lacks resources you avoid that concern.
A single mage casting wall of stone twice a day could in half a year's time create an underwater dam a mile long to cordon off feeding areas of seaweed and tear the bottoms out of unwary travelers' boats violating their sea space borders.
Did you know that horses can’t throw up? I remember hearing about this one time on would be emperor wanted an island so he had the idea to bring Calvary to the island. But the crossing was met with very rough sea. So that meant the horses got seasick. But since they can’t vomit for relief from the nausea they were useless. The invaders were pushed back into the sea.
This is wrong. Horses were thrown overboard once ships would lose the wind and become becalmed for long periods of time. Water would soon become scarce and in the interest of basic survival, the sailors would throw all the livestock overboard to save on water, which they could not replenish out at sea. No solar stills in the age of sail. Horses are the best natural swimmers, so they would not drown right away and would take a few days to die, while swimming around the stationary ship. Loads of ships carries horses and other livestock when crossing to the new world.
You are correct that horses cannot vomit though. Herbivores in general cannot vomit as it was evolved in order to get spoiled meat out of an animal’s system
Given how destructive magic is to wooden ships, do sail powered wooden ships make sense in a fantasy world. Can wizards or magical beasts propel a vessel made from something less flammable than seasoned timber?
Material matters not when it can be bespelled/imbued with Magic. Stone could be spelled to be lighter for instance. It doesn't matter if it's wood though if every timber has been spelled to be Fire/Fire Magic Resistant. Sails would be necessary for Wind Magic to have effect. Fire could be used though for propulsion too perhaps
As to Palermo, it was _also_ taken at various points by the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Kingdom of Sicily, Spain, the Savoys and Austria. Indeed, in just a decade in the early 18th century, it changed hands four times, from Spain to the Savoys (1713), then back to Spain (1717), then back to the the Savoys (1718) before the Austrians took it (1720).
Excellent video as always. I am not quite sure though on the the larger the island, the easier ti is to invade you thing . That would depend a lot on the coastline and ships involved. Landing from big ships that could actually carry an army is very complicated unless you find a suitable spot and that can be tricky unless you have locals to guide you. You did mention that the geography itself could serve to funnel troops along predictable entries. But the most interesting thing of the entire video to me was how to weaponize merfolk.. Never have thought much of that since in my worlds I don´t have them usually. But if they existed that would lead to entire different conundrum. Would coastal cities even be possible? By definition we would have to very different cultures competing for the same resources: the fish. Though agreements could be reached, history sadly indicates that more often than not conflict would be the consequence. How could you live in coastal towns when any moment a raiding party of Shagauin could show up on your doorstep with no forewarning. They would have all the strategic advantages of choosing the moment and point of battle, and once they retreated into the sea there is very little except magic that could be done to strike back at them. A war of attrition would be very one-sided, making coastal living very complicated. And the consequences of that for your world building would be tremendous. Most of our ancient civilizations have prospered along rivers and coastlines. How would earth have developed if we took that away. That would be a very interesting video.
A fortified island that you need to infiltrate and assassinate the mages maintaining the fortification sounds like a fun adventure especially if one of your players is a rogue.
Well, regarding gods intervening to defend coastal cities - legend has it that during the viking age the bishop of Mondonhedo stopped a norman incursion in Galicia by praying Hail Maries. With each prayer, a ship would sink. None reached the shore.
Wall of stone is an absurd spell that would have such a massive impact on society and would totally change everything we know about society. Paved roads would exist everywhere probably on just a super basic level. Attack an island? Just build an enclosed, armored bridge in the night
In a world where Lesser Dragons could be tamed or Pacts made with Greater Dragons a Dragon could actually be part of the Fort's Defence. On top of each Tower dwells a Dragon or a Giant Eagle ...An Eagle perhaps trained to carry a large Rock or Naptha Jar to drop on enemy ships.
I think you forget the key weakness of an island vs a ship, a ship is mobile, while an island is an island, thus shipboard mages could use long distance low accuracy spells, to navally bombard, and the ship can move out of range or have the spell being prepared while it sails in, so they could fire while shore mages are still preparing to cast.
150 feet for a fireball spell is boarding range for melee forces to get on the ship. There are vanishingly few spells with a range greater than 150 feet. The only one I can think of is Meteor Swarm, which is a 9th level spell. However, a Wizard with 9th level spells is equivalent to a pretender for the throne of being king of the entire planet, with possible access to spells to create allies and extend your life (such as casting the 6th level spell Create Undead at 9th level to create a mummy, and then casting the 6th level spell Magic Jar, and proceeding to possess the body of the mummy you created, thus giving you all your class benefits and the effective immortality of a mummy body, or even better use the 8th level spell Clone). Creating permanent allies can be quickly done with the 9th level Wizard, Warlock and Bard spell True Polymorph, which, using it over several days on sufficiently large pieces of rock, can allow you to create an army of Young Silver Dragons (albeit susceptible to dispel magic being cast against them, unless you, after being sure of the loyalty of that dragon, you can put a piece of its flesh into the Clone spell, and then allow the Clone to grow, and then kill the previous Young Silver Dragon in order for your new ally to have its soul inside a real Young Silver Dragon body almost equivalent to the previous body, but for the fact that the resulting body is no longer susceptible to Dispel Magic nor Antimagic fields.
17:32 said casters do have to have the spells required to conjure the food and other supplies needed to keep an island running which may not always be available
An Island though could outlast Siege/Blockade indefinitely if it had a Vault Of Holding connected to other Vaults hidden elsewhere on Mainland or their mainland Rulers/Allies/an Ally could resupply the Island via their Vault of Holding connected to the Island's Vault.
With Teleportation though if the Attackers on Ships can cast Teleport Circles to bring troops & supplies to the Ship/s it would also be true that Defenders could cast Teleport to send Boarding Parties/Disrupter/Infiltrator/Fire-Bomb Teams to attack the Ship/s, surely.
An island? In dnd? This would be easier then forming a police force in dnd. Way more options. For one the island doesn't have to be on the same plane of existence a d only certain people may enter. While everyone else is seeing a mirage.
If the first rule of warfare is kill the caster first, casters are disinclined to get involved in warfare. Neutral wizard societies would very much be a thing.
Is there inequality on the island? Yeah... you just need to give them equality. If I had magic i would build a sea wall around your island and raise the sea level. Can you trade with others? If your setting has magic a million ton steel rod dropped from the lich wizard's space fortress kills your island.
Speaking of underwater civilizations, would merfolk live near humans? The water coming out of a harbor would be rather polluted by human effluent. If such pollution bothers them they would not go anywhere near a harbor town lest they breathe it in. If does not bother them they would feast on the sealife that feeds on the effluent, but the humans would avoid the merfolk because the stink of the effluent.
A history channel that doesn't talk about aliens? And DOES talk about D&D?
Sign me up.
I love the constant visiting of the topical locations, making the whole channel feel like a documentary. Like there should be a bbc logo somewhere in the corner
Ahaha, brilliant. Unfortunately, don't get tooo used to it. I'm not planning any trips in the near future!
Well, many that are too far from home, anyway
@@Grungeon_Master😂😂😂
Tom's gonna turn into D&D Tom Scott
He is a TV entertainer in the UK and so is required to pay his BBC tax, he really should be able to put a BBC logo on his channel and take all channel expenses off of his taxes. he should do a poll of UK citizens going village to village and see how many of UK citizens like this idea of having a RUclips or video stream channel and so being able to count all channel expenses off one's tax, their are a few UK content creators he could join with to help make this happen.
Man I love how your videos deconstruct how magic would change high-fantasy medieval worlds. There's always something cool to consider from each video
Like with most of the logistics problems with medieval fantasy tropes, the answer to "how to defend an island" can be found in ancient Greek mythology. Specifically, the Odyssey.
What do Odysseus and his crew find on every island Poseidon throws them on? A monster or a population of monsters or a single witch. Every time.
Don't sail to that island. The cyclopses will get you.
Don't sail to that island. The Amazons will get you.
Don't sail to that island. The witch will turn you into a pig.
Don't sail near that island. Sirens.
Don't sail near that island. Either the tentacle monster will get you, or the maw at the bottom of the whirlpool will.
Don't sail there. The witch will seduce you so she can use your seed to do some... actually, no. That one doesn't seem so bad.
If you want to defend an island, you can either build a small army, rent out space to a monster, or errect one wizard tower.
Or just spread rumors about monsters and scatter some human skeletons on the beaches
@Purriah If it's just a ruse, then any enterprising group of cut throats will eventually test the rumors, find out, and try to move in and make the rumors "true."
Best case scenario, you become roommates with the "ghost" pirate crew from the early seasons of Venture Brothers.
Worst case scenario, you've laid the groundwork for every npc pirate in the setting to operate in complete secrecy from their new hideout once they take you out.
You just missed the best defense… write a story that details the horrible unsurvivable monsters that live on literally every island around you. Now no one will try
@@CitanulsPumpkinnot necessarily especially in a high magic world where some people are equipped to deal with basically anything. To the king or adventurers it doesn’t matter if it’s a cyclops or a bandit crew that keeps killing everyone on that island send the court wizard or an adventuring party.
@l3gend576 Okay, sure. The nearest king can just send his mage. Congrats. You've set up your campaign setting so that there's nothing for the PCs to do.
Again, if you just build all the island's defenses on a lie someone will come by to use that lie against you. If you "just send a wizard to deal with it" your wizard will get ganked by the pirate captain's shadow monk lieutenant.
With magic, the concept of an island could easily grow to encompass any tract of land that's isolated by difficult-to-navigate terrain. After all, as pointed out, you can survive indefinitely almost anywhere without any external provisions. Your island could be atop a plateau, slipped into a valley too deep to ever build a road to, dug deep underground, or placed on the back of some giant megafauna. Especially if your world has something like a dirigible available to them, like Eberron.
There's also the more traditional "isolated castle surrounded by a dense, magically-defended forest full of hostile creatures" fairytale trope. Usually the lair of some cursed noble/monarch.
I like the idea of creating a ring of underwater spears with Stone Shape to impale the hulls of incoming ships with a gap only on the land ward side. You're not discouraging trade and any approaching invaders would have to make them selves visible to coastal cities.
In dnd, since waterwalk is a spell, you don't even need to get close to land to invade with infantry. Have a mage cast waterwalk on some shock troops, perhaps even cavalry(this will be very hard to manage, granted) and send them in to secure a landing position for the rest of an invasion force.
i think the concept is most interesting at lower levels, because in DnD and pathfinder a single druid, nature cleric, or particularly stubborn ranger can colonize and defend their own island with almost scary effectiveness, in pathfinder 1e a level 15 druid with the right build can colonize an island and defend it without really breaking a sweat given a day or two of preparation
proposal: never build permanent teleport circles, build them on a section of floor that can be separated to disable it
I would love to see you do a video on food culture in D&D worlds. Not only how the cultures and anatomy of each race affects it, but also the effects of magic. How might heroes’ feast and create food and water make a difference? Also, purify food and drink can allow food to become a lot more safe. Normally poisonous foods could become edible. People might eat chicken tartare, as the raw chicken would be magically cleansed of salmonella, campylobacter and other pathogens. The wealthy might pay a lot for otherwise dangerous food to show status, even if it’s not actually that good served the way it is. Also, it is a first level ritual spell, meaning that if you have access to the resources to learn it, anyone can learn to cast it an unlimited amount of times without taking class levels. People might set up monopolies of safe to eat, usually toxic foods. And also, once disease and poisons have been removed, the cultural definition of food probably becomes a lot more loose.
These are brilliant points. My prestidigitation and vegetarianism videos discuss food somewhat, but this is certainly a very good insight that I hadn't considered. I'll let the idea percolate and see if a video comes out of it
@@Grungeon_Master mix in food allergies, celiac disease, lactose intolerance, etc. if you want a true challenge (or make a separate niche video, if that works better).
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 makes me wonder: if someone has a food allergy, does their allergen count as a poison for purify food and drink?
@@Hunterdog Can the spell be specified to exactly vanish a specific protein and nothing else? Like: take away the milk protein from milk, or e.g. gluten from a cereal product?
It would probably be more efficient, though, to swap cow's milk for goat or sheep milk, and wheat for rice or potato.
As for Purify Food and Drink what about salt water? Salt is essential for food prep and bodily function. But then TOO much salt will kill you. You can't drink seawater because there is so much salt in that it would draw out what water you have in your body by osmosis. So would Purify Food and Drink leave fresh water?
It is a higher level but what about Fabricate? Could you take all salt from an amount of sea water and make one large salt cube thus making fresh water or at least brackish water?
15:26 and this is why you have mages who learn spells like control flame on your ships and other useful ones for putting out fires or countering spells before they can reach your vessel. If magic exists there is no reason people would use magic to counter it when people start using it in warfare
The most underrated ttrpg channel on RUclips. Appointment viewing, for sure
I would like to second that! Tom, does a masterful job of bringing a unique twist on world-building that isn't found anywhere in RUclips land!
the teleportation circle spell has a limitation of only working if there is space around the destination for the traveler to move into. so a tp circle in a defended location would be contained in a smaller fortified building with space only available if the door to it is open. meaning only a few people can go through before there is no more space and they start dying as they are shunted by the teleportation into the walls. some circles may even create something that can be moved to block the space directly over the circle itself. given there is long range communication spells its reasonable to keep these circles locked down any time they are not being used.
It would be a kill box. Small point of entry, set up so that defenders have plenty of time to identify friend from foe, plenty of cover for defenders to attack from multiple sides. Seriously take a look at traditional castle entrances for more ideas. Or just go the Stargate route and put a door over it when you don't want it used.
Having something blocking the circle to stop people coming in might be up for interpretation because of this one line.
"in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied"
How far is the "nearest unoccupied space"? Does it mean the 12 spaces directly touching or adjacent to the 10 foot circle or does it extend to beyond those unoccupied spaces?
Even with that pedantic argument One spell would completely negate all the kill box prep someone does to guard against unwanted teleporting in.
*Transport via Plants* 6th level Druid spell. All a druid has to use the spell is have seen one Large or Larger plant on that island (or for that matter rival warring nation) just once and instant transport. The connection is only open for 1 round but you could move a very large amount of troop through the connection in that amount of time if they are staged correctly.
@@targetdreamer257Tippyverse did the calculation, i believe...
A smart Island pop. would use Magic to construct a Redoubt in Centre of island where maybe they can view 360 Degrees. if attacked all the peoples retreat to the Redoubt.
It's much harder to attack uphill than to defend downhill.
So, I've recently been running a PF2e game in a homebrewed post WWI setting, set on a large island that is basically an expy of Hawaii. My premise is that they weren't directly colonized this time around due to their magical capacity, but still found the event to close for comfort. The points you bring up further solidify this idea, as the development of modern naval vessels (steel hulls, coal-fired engines, and super firing artillery cannons) would render most traditional defenses obsolete, aside from magical wards.
Clicked cause the thumbnail promised me I could own Mount Saint Michelle
But this is nice too
When you mentioned seafolk destroying a ship from below. . . All I could imagine is a special forces team that consists of artificers and a caster with Water Breathing deploying a counter attack by diving from a mage made well from within the island, sneaking under the ship with pass without trace, and disassembling it
That's a relatively very small group of operators that can turn the tide of battle (pun intended)
These are some of the best videos on fantasy storytelling I have ever seen.
During WWII Allies were able to track & monitor Japanese Naval & air Movement just by stationing individuals & small teams on strategic Isles. they did not need to man every isle & they did not really require huge manpower to do so. You couldn't have a powerful Long-Range Mage in every position but you could have perhaps several Lesser Short-Range Mages on station to give Warning via Magical means and to form a Magical "Net" connecting to the Mage in sight of Enemy lending him power or the lesser Mages scattered in hidden locations could conversely lend Magical power to a more powerful Mage.
Given how likely a powerful mage is to be power hungry, I almost expect those mages to become sources of power for their own governments, so you really don’t want to “send out your mages” to do guard duty. Rather, a smart king bribes and honors his mages to basically form a parliament for his country. This is significant in unexpected ways when the king uses the same ceremony as British Parliament uses, where most people forget that the oath of office is “I ___[name]___ swear to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to King Charles III his heirs and successors according to law.”
By making that gesture so ingrained that average Britons don’t think much of it, and could be upset at a government leader who doesn’t swear the oath of office, you get a fantasy situation of any major magician in a country either wants to run to be a member of Parliament, or if a magician starts making moves to set up his own government away from the king, then that is suddenly seen as treason, and a war breaks out to get rid of the rebel magicians.
In light of such a Parliament situation for those sources of real power (every magician with access to 3rd level spells), we are hit with a likely situation in our fictional world that sending out a powerful magician to fight on an island is like sending out House of Lords member David Cameron to fight on the beaches of Gibraltar with some light infantry to push back an invasion by Morocco. If it sounds ridiculous to do that with David Cameron in our modern day, then it will sound ridiculous to do it with well-known powerful magicians in the fantasy setting. Now, of course, if this is a battle with a lot of public opinion riding on the victory, then suddenly things change and the magical parliamentarians will probably each try fighting separately with a division of nonmagical infantry underneath them, where those nonmagical people are assigned to have their main role be to remember everything their commander did and write songs about him, and their secondary job is to tell tales about his exploits in battle when they return home. The tertiary role of those infantry under that politician is to do their “actual” jobs as soldiers.
Love the videos. Rooting the fantasy in reality and exploring fantasy worlds after looking at real world historical events, gives these videos a documentary feel. It’s like if David Attenborough were a D&D aficionado.
I play an artificer wizard gestalt and said a way to stop the time dilation of the feywild, by making a time stable object and placing it in two dimensions at once, or putting the material plane next to a black hole to slow the one we worry about to a crawl. Anyways the dm fears I might destroy the universe or multiverse. Also I find this video interesting.
I am enjoying all of The Grungeon Master videos
In the world I'm building, a cabal of mostly elven wizards terraform a planet in the (untiled then unpopulated) prime material plane. Part of that was raising a mass of stone to form an archipelago consisting of a large Cresent enveloping a smaller central island and several fortress islands on the outer arc. This archipelago is their home territory. This video is going to be a great help in designing their defenses; thank you for making it. 🙂
I shall name my island Little St. James. It will mostly be sheer cliffs around the edge, but it will have a bay which can be chained off.
24:41 it wouldn't have to be *every single* coastal settlement though unless we're talking about an island in a river here. Just deepwater ports. If you've already forced your opponent into small boats in order to land, then trebuchet emplacements and alchemical mines will make landing all but impossible. Rune traps are also very effective, especially against opponents who don't employ wizards (wizard colleges are hecking expensive). And that's IF they can land at all, which is not always feasible. There are actually relatively few angles of attack for an ocean-going vessel on most islands, because reefs and cliffs or even silted up river deltas can prevent their approach. Or the water around your island could just be *boiling* like for Hawaii. You can also protect your ports Carthaginian style, by building walls which need to be lifted in order for boats to get out. A drawbridge across a harbor is a very potent defense on an island as it limits the size of enemy ships that can approach land.
Additionally, islands often have satellite rock formations or sandbars either just peaking out of the ocean or just beneath it's surface. These can function as building platforms for lighthouses, which can be early detection systems. You needn't staff them with mages, as the lights themselves can be signal devices. Even with very low tech, you can use screens to create flash patterns which are highly visible from shore. But the enemy would never see it, as the side of the fire they can see is not the one being covered. If you have lenses this is even more effective, because changing the angle of the lens also alters the light as seen from shore. Again, this is a silent signal the enemy is unlikely to detect. Only a trained artificer *might* be able to tell you were signalling. If you have lenses your lighthouse could even be a weapon, and again only a highly trained artificer would even notice this attack until it's too late. You could deliberately let ships into your harbor, and drop anchor in order to cast teleportation circles. At that point you refocus your lens, while they're distracted with their summoning. By the time their first wave of summons shows up, their sails are on fire.
Sure fire mages would be dangerous to ships but personally I think the caster that can cast Control Weather would be the most dangerous for the invading maritime assault. If you use the longest time stated in the spell a mage could cause the calm day to shift to stormy (one step above gale force) in must 160 minutes. That mage could hold the weather at that stage for 8 hours. It has a extremely massive area of effect of 5 miles. Yeah that 5 mile area would be centered on the one casting the spell and it would wreak havoc on any structure on the island but if they are crazy enough to hit the nuke button just to stop an invasion I don't know if that island would be worth the trouble of taking.
Once we have casters getting beyond 6th level spells, we are looking at pretenders for the throne of king of the entire world. A caster who can cast an eighth level spell is likely presumably (even if wrongly) by neighboring countries to be a person with the potential to cast Teleport (a 7th level spell with unlimited range), making that person be feared by nations to the same extent as an ICBM.
Thus, showing the existence of a person on your island with the ability to cast an 8th level spell can directly make your island “worth invading” just for the sake of the comfort of foreign rulers hating the existence of a mage who can teleport into their palace and drop a firestorm (another 7th level spell) on them while they are sleeping, regardless of how good the intentions of that mage are, the fear that other rulers have is greater.
I support and appreciate your not selling out to a bunch of sponsors. First I hear about raids and thankfully no raid promo and then about fishing without mentioning a VPN
teleportation circles also mean that islands that joint together can support large armies, just as the ship arrived with the teleportation circle, the defending troops can arrive from a dedicated fortress island that has links to all the islands. all the islands will have a way that is optimal to attack it from meaning for the defending troops it becomes the same predictable battle. if a island blocks visibility from a angle then it's more likely the enemy will come from that direction, predictable. they can pick the beach closest to land on or to climb the cliffs closest from that approach, that becomes path A or Path B, predictable. put a ship to watch the cliffs hard to see climbers from the island easy to see from a "fishing" ship, set up ambush points for the predictable paths they will take. islands are where multiple paths come together in the center. you are only going to a point on a island, unlike on a land you may be just passing threw the countryside to get to a distant land, if your going to a distant land and stopping in port on the island then you have no business in the countryside unless you are a spy.
Send a small infiltration unit to an island.
Infiltration unit sets up a teleportation circle in a relatively remote location.
The infiltration unit then uses the sending spell to inform the invading army's head mage the formula for that teleportation circle.
Head mage then proceeds to teleport an army to the island.
Suddenly an army has appeared without ever making landfall save for a little dingy that showed up a day prior.
I think you’d need to perform the spell for a year before being able to use that location for teleportation- since the spell specifies it needs a “permanent teleport circle”. But the idea of sending an infiltrator to create one of those in the enemy capital ahead of an invasion is awesome
@iamfilam2513
Within the parameters listed by the spell, and only those, yes. But if one were to consider a "permanent teleportation circle" to mean one that doesn't fade after a few seconds, then it might be possible to manually carve out a teleportation circle into a stone or wood floor that is then powered by magical energy, this may even be how one would get a teleportation circle to work on a boat. It technically might even be possible for one to teleport to a temporary teleportation circle if someone knew or otherwised guessed the sigi sequence, they just don't last long enough for someone to commit the sequence to memory. It might be possible that two mages with a telepathic link are able to share their sigil sequences instantly and could potentially swap places if they each cast the spell at the same time.
If one were to assume that the way the spell was written was only covering the potential most common use cases, then a small team of master craftsmen with some magic power sources and a sending stone could potentially take down an island fortification with their instant army. If the way the spell is written is the only way it can work, then it will be a year-long operation where they hope they aren't discovered.
@@dicyanoacetylene6220 That’s all great. Far be it from me to limit your brainstorming. I was just pointing out that the spell you were referencing using makes mention of needing a permanent teleportation circle, and that it takes one year to create a permanent teleportation circle. But homebrew it up!
@@iamfilam2513 I think this plan can work with a temporary one.
Problem is that it's a 5th level spell, so a domain of decently powerful wizards and those, depending on settings, can be hard to find, considering that vast majority of npcs are intended to be below level 1
@@Alex-cq1zr I mean, with homebrew, anything can work. All I was pointing out was the spell states you have to pick a permanent teleportation circle to teleport to. Non-permanent circles, based on the spell, disappear after 6 seconds. Change it however you want.
This reminds me of watching Brian Cox taking tenuous premise to go and film in some lovely scenic places! Excellent work. Shame the BBC didn't pay for it though.
In my current campaign, the planet has hundreds of smaller islands that can support a larger village but are also able to move using magic, making them effectively comparable to aircraft carriers when it comes to power projection.
So happy at the mention of The Count of Monte Cristo. I love that story and the movie from the late 90s or 2000s is still on my top 5 list of favorite movies.
19:10 Don't forget the enemy could just use teleportation magic to get onto the island bypassing defenses to attack or using their own illusion magic to sneak up on the defenders. As for assassinating the mages defending the place they could use the invisibility spell on a competent assassin whose able to make the swim from the blockade to the island or even just cast water walking or water breathing on them at the same time and letting them head in assuming there aren't a bunch of aquatic monsters around to make such an attempt fool hardy
There always Counter-Magics though.
Detect-Spell "Sentinels/Sentries" tethered to seafloor ...Mana-Bomb Mines to explode if Magic detected offshore. Buildings can be warded with Magical Barrier. Even Invisibility Spell can be warded against/countered.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy Yes and the ships can come prepared to handle that if they know it's there via using divination magic. It's counter spells all the way down
Id love to hear you talk about history like this
In contrast, about magical defence of islands in history: the Lebor Gabala shows how the mage-kings-gods of Ireland summoned a magical storm to keep the Milesians from invading them.
Interestingly, the same story shows us magical countermeasures: the bard Amergin, of the Milesians, sings a plea to the land of Ireland and the storm wanes, allowing the Celts to invade.
Although, considering there is a DM they could theoretically have it be that Raiders are none-existent so the only threat is a foreign country.
Additionally, another defense is Illusion Magic that could make the Island look like a barren wasteland to outsiders.
or just made the whole island invisible :)
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy But then there is concern that a potential enemy would crash into an invisible island causing problems. But if it simply looks like a place you don't want to be/lacks resources you avoid that concern.
A single mage casting wall of stone twice a day could in half a year's time create an underwater dam a mile long to cordon off feeding areas of seaweed and tear the bottoms out of unwary travelers' boats violating their sea space borders.
Just discovered this channel! Love it!
Did you know that horses can’t throw up? I remember hearing about this one time on would be emperor wanted an island so he had the idea to bring Calvary to the island. But the crossing was met with very rough sea. So that meant the horses got seasick. But since they can’t vomit for relief from the nausea they were useless. The invaders were pushed back into the sea.
This is wrong.
Horses were thrown overboard once ships would lose the wind and become becalmed for long periods of time. Water would soon become scarce and in the interest of basic survival, the sailors would throw all the livestock overboard to save on water, which they could not replenish out at sea.
No solar stills in the age of sail.
Horses are the best natural swimmers, so they would not drown right away and would take a few days to die, while swimming around the stationary ship.
Loads of ships carries horses and other livestock when crossing to the new world.
You are correct that horses cannot vomit though. Herbivores in general cannot vomit as it was evolved in order to get spoiled meat out of an animal’s system
This video just inspired me to run a archipelago/seafaring campaign. Have the players start in an island controlled by pirates
Got an age of sail castle on an island not far from here. Offered an excellent command of the nearby port.
"Islands"
"Control"
"Victory"
All in the first two sentences
War... War never changes.
Given how destructive magic is to wooden ships, do sail powered wooden ships make sense in a fantasy world. Can wizards or magical beasts propel a vessel made from something less flammable than seasoned timber?
Material matters not when it can be bespelled/imbued with Magic. Stone could be spelled to be lighter for instance. It doesn't matter if it's wood though if every timber has been spelled to be Fire/Fire Magic Resistant.
Sails would be necessary for Wind Magic to have effect. Fire could be used though for propulsion too perhaps
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iydon't need lighter stone. steel is heavier than both and makes excellent ships.
As to Palermo, it was _also_ taken at various points by the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Kingdom of Sicily, Spain, the Savoys and Austria. Indeed, in just a decade in the early 18th century, it changed hands four times, from Spain to the Savoys (1713), then back to Spain (1717), then back to the the Savoys (1718) before the Austrians took it (1720).
Excellent video as always. I am not quite sure though on the the larger the island, the easier ti is to invade you thing . That would depend a lot on the coastline and ships involved. Landing from big ships that could actually carry an army is very complicated unless you find a suitable spot and that can be tricky unless you have locals to guide you. You did mention that the geography itself could serve to funnel troops along predictable entries.
But the most interesting thing of the entire video to me was how to weaponize merfolk.. Never have thought much of that since in my worlds I don´t have them usually. But if they existed that would lead to entire different conundrum. Would coastal cities even be possible? By definition we would have to very different cultures competing for the same resources: the fish. Though agreements could be reached, history sadly indicates that more often than not conflict would be the consequence. How could you live in coastal towns when any moment a raiding party of Shagauin could show up on your doorstep with no forewarning. They would have all the strategic advantages of choosing the moment and point of battle, and once they retreated into the sea there is very little except magic that could be done to strike back at them. A war of attrition would be very one-sided, making coastal living very complicated. And the consequences of that for your world building would be tremendous. Most of our ancient civilizations have prospered along rivers and coastlines. How would earth have developed if we took that away. That would be a very interesting video.
A fortified island that you need to infiltrate and assassinate the mages maintaining the fortification sounds like a fun adventure especially if one of your players is a rogue.
Tom, missing the Byzantines in Sicily completely:
Justinian and Belisarius: are we a joke to you???
Well, regarding gods intervening to defend coastal cities - legend has it that during the viking age the bishop of Mondonhedo stopped a norman incursion in Galicia by praying Hail Maries. With each prayer, a ship would sink. None reached the shore.
Wall of stone is an absurd spell that would have such a massive impact on society and would totally change everything we know about society. Paved roads would exist everywhere probably on just a super basic level. Attack an island? Just build an enclosed, armored bridge in the night
No mention of Falklands, Japan, Madagascar, or other Pacific islands.
Great analytical thinking
I’m almost certain that in the lore, Sahuagin, Well encourage dragons to nest in their area as it keeps a lot of the riffraff out
In a world where Lesser Dragons could be tamed or Pacts made with Greater Dragons a Dragon could actually be part of the Fort's Defence. On top of each Tower dwells a Dragon or a Giant Eagle ...An Eagle perhaps trained to carry a large Rock or Naptha Jar to drop on enemy ships.
The Phoenicians colonized Carthage, how did they colonize them in turn
I think you forget the key weakness of an island vs a ship, a ship is mobile, while an island is an island, thus shipboard mages could use long distance low accuracy spells, to navally bombard, and the ship can move out of range or have the spell being prepared while it sails in, so they could fire while shore mages are still preparing to cast.
150 feet for a fireball spell is boarding range for melee forces to get on the ship.
There are vanishingly few spells with a range greater than 150 feet.
The only one I can think of is Meteor Swarm, which is a 9th level spell.
However, a Wizard with 9th level spells is equivalent to a pretender for the throne of being king of the entire planet, with possible access to spells to create allies and extend your life (such as casting the 6th level spell Create Undead at 9th level to create a mummy, and then casting the 6th level spell Magic Jar, and proceeding to possess the body of the mummy you created, thus giving you all your class benefits and the effective immortality of a mummy body, or even better use the 8th level spell Clone).
Creating permanent allies can be quickly done with the 9th level Wizard, Warlock and Bard spell True Polymorph, which, using it over several days on sufficiently large pieces of rock, can allow you to create an army of Young Silver Dragons (albeit susceptible to dispel magic being cast against them, unless you, after being sure of the loyalty of that dragon, you can put a piece of its flesh into the Clone spell, and then allow the Clone to grow, and then kill the previous Young Silver Dragon in order for your new ally to have its soul inside a real Young Silver Dragon body almost equivalent to the previous body, but for the fact that the resulting body is no longer susceptible to Dispel Magic nor Antimagic fields.
17:32 said casters do have to have the spells required to conjure the food and other supplies needed to keep an island running which may not always be available
An Island though could outlast Siege/Blockade indefinitely if it had a Vault Of Holding connected to other Vaults hidden elsewhere on Mainland or their mainland Rulers/Allies/an Ally could resupply the Island via their Vault of Holding connected to the Island's Vault.
"Down river" is always toward the ocean, not the other way.
Wait, Knights of St. John? I thought they were called the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, god damn Catholic mercenaries and their weird ass names.
I hope he goes into aquatic/amphibious monsters being used to attack islands
With Teleportation though if the Attackers on Ships can cast Teleport Circles to bring troops & supplies to the Ship/s it would also be true that Defenders could cast Teleport to send Boarding Parties/Disrupter/Infiltrator/Fire-Bomb Teams to attack the Ship/s, surely.
No, you need to have seen and know the circle to teleport to it.
Did NOT expect you to actually go to an island lmao
Just follow Archimedes, lots of cranes and have tinkers construct solar death ray
So I think I may have found the mist op under water combat spell it's waterwalk
25:44 But what if Odin or the other Norse gods started fighting the Christian god to defend their worshipers while they were raiding?
It would take plane shift but imagine a portable hole
An island? In dnd? This would be easier then forming a police force in dnd. Way more options. For one the island doesn't have to be on the same plane of existence a d only certain people may enter. While everyone else is seeing a mirage.
If the first rule of warfare is kill the caster first, casters are disinclined to get involved in warfare. Neutral wizard societies would very much be a thing.
I should buy an island
Is there inequality on the island? Yeah... you just need to give them equality. If I had magic i would build a sea wall around your island and raise the sea level. Can you trade with others? If your setting has magic a million ton steel rod dropped from the lich wizard's space fortress kills your island.
I see your orbital tower and raise you a bag of frozen peas.
Speaking of underwater civilizations, would merfolk live near humans? The water coming out of a harbor would be rather polluted by human effluent. If such pollution bothers them they would not go anywhere near a harbor town lest they breathe it in. If does not bother them they would feast on the sealife that feeds on the effluent, but the humans would avoid the merfolk because the stink of the effluent.
sounds like somebody's players had an island siege XD
First.
I’ve always wanted to do that.
Good job